#bjd set up

[sainte-melasse]

*~~Be an angel and don’t reblog her on a kink/nsfw blog~~*

[shadowmoses]

only took almost a year but i finally made merry a little outfit... she can finally stop borrowing from my other dolls lol

[quilleth]

Ok therapists and what not have long wait lists, but I was given a prescription for adhd meds soo I guess I just start taking them and maybe reach out to the staff counseling service at work until I can get in with someone else to work on the adhd thing.

my pcp wanted me to work with someone to help monitor how the meds are working for me (or not). i'm terrible at journaling, but i guess i can track things here xD

I'm on a low extended release dose but i'm still a little nervous. So far though, I'm noticing my usual morning "i'm tired and need caffeine or i can't be held responsible for my actions" headache is going away. If that's related or just the fact it's already 9:30, who knows lol

[hollowrose]

I got my first ever ball jointed doll recently and I’m obsessed with her

[volfoss]

How I'm doing the busted knuckles on my doll!

This tutorial is MOSTLY so i can remember how to do it for future dolls but figured I would post it!

First, I lay down a couple colours of pastel. The first color is a sort of warm purple color and the second is a brighter teal.

This gets the resin to look irritated! I use a eyeshadow brush that's pretty flat and thin to really pack the color on there. I use a lot more purple and add the blue when I'm closer to the color I want!!

^ i had accidentally sealed in some green from a different part of the hand I was blushing so the pinky looks kinda gnarly here! The sealant I use wiped off some of the pastel so for the next one I did, I made sure to use a big brush to remove the excess powders before sealing lol. You can kinda see how I have some areas more concentrated than others but I was also considering how certain injuries would look in terms of what I was referencing (ie making the entire side of the hand bruised vs just the injury spot)

Then I use a few watercolor paints to achieve the main shape of the wound. First, a warmish light purple in a very rough circle shape, it does NOT have to be perfect at all. Then a medium shade blue, going over the purple when it's still wet, leaving just a small circle of purple to outline the shape. I let them kind of mix together on the resin as I paint it on! Then i go in with a slightly more blood red, adding that over the blue and covering nearly all of it, mixing the two colors together. When I'm nearly done, I add a basic red color on top and mix just a bit, keeping the fine purple and blue lines there on the outside of the wound.

^ colors labeled by how I explained them above

I let that dry a bit, then get a bit of Elmer's glue (I use glue-all but you can really just use the normal school glue stuff, this is just what I had on hand) and a toothpick. I use the toothpick to create an edge around the wound, letting it get blending into the resin that isn't part of the wound but keeping the wound itself having a semi harsh circle around it.

^ you can see the glue here, I also mixed up glue with a small amount of both my usual red pastel I use for blushing (which is about the same color of color #3 of the watercolors) and the purple color I used for the bruises and applied it to the center of the wound. I personally chose to leave a small area of it unglued (or less glued) to give it a fresher wound appearance.

^ this is with the glue dried after two coats of glue! I do the second coat after the first is fully dry and just go around the outside edges with more of the uncolored glue. It adds more of a raised appearance to it :)

[struungout]

The small order of hands I ordered from Asleep Eidolon arrived on Tuesday. c: I love having piles of different hand poses for my dolls, always bums me out when a doll maker doesn’t make more options. Also, got a pair of jointed hands too for the AE body Ken will be taking over once I get him back from Komorebi Dolls, though I’m kinda tempted to put them on Jonathan and give Ken the Soom jointed hands (mostly because I just like the Soom hands more, aesthetic-wise).

Also been thinking of getting Kaen an Asleep Eidolon body in the future. The Doll Leaves one he’s on is nice and all, but he looks kinda bobble-headed on it, in my opinion. xD; May also be thinking about getting another Narsha head down the road to put the Narsha body I have on hand to actual use since I don’t think Kaen will be returning to it anytime soon.

[dollsonmain]

It came up in conversation how I'm often finding good BJD listings on eBay and how do I search in order to find things.

My main searches are:

bjd -ucanaan -toy -toys -popovy -recast -eva -doris -barbie -gift -changeable -removable -gifts -oueneifs -faiiry -ken

and

volks -azone -blythe -pullip

However, I've also excluded a lot of sellers that sell recasts.

To do that you have to go to Advanced search and scroll down to here:

and put in whatever sellers you don't want to see in your search results.

I just added one, so mine's:

jalpit,unlimitedcellular,lxlstech,jorge-dimensiones,femail007295c,wework-now-24-hours,the-real-deal-usa,noamsshop,usa-best-deal,caladhieltan,beautyforyou66,us-deal-monster,natalula,matthew--aceron,riprin-70

right now.

Probably better explained by someone else:

which is from here: https://community.ebay.com/t5/Ask-a-Mentor/How-to-block-a-seller/td-p/33017351

I also set the first search to North America only because there's no "everywhere but China" option. China is where most of the fakes are coming from as of now. That does mean I miss out on a TON of listings, though.

That helps filter out recasters that don't disclose they're selling recasts and AliExpress junk.

The Volks search's results are much fewer so sorting through them isn't as daunting and I have that one set to worldwide.

Either way, afaik Facebook Groups is the most active place to buy and sell BJD right now? I'm not in any groups, though.

[nomi800]

New post up on Cults! or check out my Patreon to get all my bjd designs 💕

I noticed there weren’t many options for canes for bjds so I made an easy set that can be mixed and matched!

[maleficentmrsofallevil]

I gotta talk about this doll

yeah, I know I'll be working on this presentation until midnight and regret it later

Where was this doll when I was a newbie collector who wanted an affordable mature tiny BJD? Serious jealousy for newbies RN.

UF Doll 1/6 scale mature tiny bunny girl. She's plastic - I know, I had to tap on it with my fingernails to make sure. She is adorable. She was $40 on AliExpress, and she is the PERFECT starter BJD for anyone making the leap from, say, Barbie.

Doll nudes.

Is she double-jointed? Yup.

Are those mobility thigh joints? Also yes.

Is she strung? Yes - and she comes with optional "glove" hands, boots, and extra s-hooks:

She has inset eyes (can probably spot the extra eye putty I missed until after I was done taking pics) and TWO sets of eyes:

I put the blue ones on her.

The outfit is adorable and excellent quality. She has a painted face-up and a silicone kip under the s-hook in her neck. I am stunned. This is a fabulous doll.

And now I get to go work for another 5 hours (sigh...)

[olderthannetfic]

https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/750768261479694336/yeah-cultural-appropriation-is-a-little-bit

Take my words with a heap of salt, because I didn't read the actual book. All I did was watch some long videos and reading a few reviews. But like, some authors can fuck up even when they're writing about their own culture.

Anyways, I want to rip the author of To Gaze Upon a Wicked God to shreds. She's of Chinese descent, but I honestly felt like she was just exploiting our people's history for "cool" and "novel" plot points for profit. She wrote a fucking colonizer romance between a traitor Chinese assassin and the prince of the invading nation whose idea of peace is to subjugate China without genocide. I guess that makes him better than ✨ the other ones ✨

And before someone rightfully ask if I'm reading too much into it or if I'm misinterpreting anything, they explicitly marketed the book as a "Zutara inspired enemies to lover romance based on the Russian/Japanese invasion of Machuria." She namedrops Unit 731 as an inspiration. You know, the human experimentation base, one of the most horrific crimes against humanity, a permanent scar that won't heal right because Japan insists on never acknowledging its war crimes? Oh, btw, the male lead created the in universe equivalent of Unit 731. Yeah, the love interest.

The whole thing is set in an alternate universe where "Chinese people" aka the Panguians never developed technology because ~magic~ and they fought with bows and arrows because ~magic~ This au version of China, which has no modern weapon and NO MEDICINE is supposed to be Qing China? This really annoys me because she was writing for a primarily western audience, and this weak, infantilized, orientalised mess is already how they picture China during the invasion of foreign forces. Like, I would not be nearly as annoyed if the author herself didn't specify that she was writing about that time period. I actually like orientalism in small doses, it can be aesthetic.

Apparently the marketing surrounding the book is pivoting hard because of the negative reviews coming out. Now, they're acting like the male lead wasn't supposed to be the love interest. The real love interest is her childhood friend of course. Like girl, bffr, you said it yourself it's enemies to lovers and your mc literally just fell in love with the prince while she was being ordered to kill the leaders of her own people.

Last time I was this baffled by the tone-deafness of a Chinese creator vis-à-vis the Century of Humiliation was in 2013, when Ringdoll came out with Hayato the Imperial Japanese soldier bjd

--

But you haven't read the book...

Look, anything in the het booktok giant background of expensive hardcovers with their spines facing the wall because the pages have a design space is not of interest to me. It all sounds tedious.

But even before the marketing pivot, it was clear that a lot of people were going on hearsay and that the author's comments about Unit 731 were at least a bit more nuanced than the game of telephone that resulted.

I'm with you that genetics don't prevent an author from writing a shitty book, but can someone who's actually read this thing weigh in?

Does it seem like the enemy prince was the original real love interest, or was that early marketing nonsense and he was probably originally intended as a fakeout?

[deathbxnny]

Hello hello! May I request Welt, Gepard, and Sampo with a S/O bjd (ball jointed doll) reader hcs?

-----♡

A/N: Hello Anon! Thank you for the interesting request! I hope you like it!

Content: Established relationships, doll reader, fluff, sfw

Reader has no set pronouns!

((I'm sorry for any mistakes!))

-----♡

》Welt Yang

Welt is honestly just fascinated by everything about you. He frequently asks questions and always makes sure to note down all possible details about your existence. He finds you absolutely adorable too, finding your doll-like features endearing and beautiful.

He'll help you out, if you are in need of a repair or have to get your joints oiled, so they move smoothly again. He loves doing things for your well-being, so just let him do everything for you.

Definitely enjoys dressing you up in pretty clothes that he spoils you with. He finds it especially cute, if you match with him.

If you happen to feel insecure or shy about your doll-like features, then he's quick to reassure you and promise that he loves you the exact way you are.

Perfect lover for this honestly.

-----♡

》Gepard Landau

Was a little confused on how exactly you work as a doll, but never dared judge or question you for it. In fact, he found it endearing and cute, despite his confusion at first.

He treats you with the utmost care and love, afraid that if he's even slightly rough with you, that you'll break. Even if you won't, he still wouldn't dare it.

Whenever you need to repair something or oil your joints, he takes you to Serval, who gladly helps you out. He usually makes sure nothing ever happens to you though, that warrants a huge repair.

Will definitely spoil you with the prettiest clothes to wear. He was initially shy about asking you, if you'd allow him to dress you up. But once he gets permission, he makes sure that you're wearing the nicest clothes in all of Belobog.

Won't hesitate to use his status to scare away any bullies or judgmental stares. If you feel shy or even insecure about your appearance, he comforts and reassures you, making sure you know how much he loves you.

-----♡

》Sampo Koski

A huge tease, that loves nothing more than to show you off proudly to anything with eyes. You are something he is very much proud of having and he'll make sure that everyone knows.

He loves flustering you with sweet, teasing words, as he runs his hands along your ball joints in fascinated interest. Being shy or insecure about your features is absolutely impossible with him, that's for sure.

Definitely dresses you up in the cutest clothes possible, if you like it or not. Everyone just has to know how beautiful you are and he'll make sure they do. Just don't ask him, how he gets ahold of the clothes...

If you ever need a repair or your joints oiled, he'll ofcourse personally take care of it. He doesn't trust anyone with you after all... only he gets to have you.

-----♡

A/N: I hope this was okay! Thank you again for the request!<33

[fairykukla]

Last year I went on a hunt for 17-18" skeletons for my Doll-O-Ween party. I found some very good articulated ones at Big Lots that were dressed as various characters. I removed the nurse costume from one of them and posed it as my piano player.

This year I checked out Big Lots again and found this guy.

He's ball-jointed.

He's almost as posable as one of my BJDs!!

He's fantastic! I took the screws out of the back of his head and took the head apart to remove his hanging loop. The head is set on a ball joint as well! (I neglected to take any pics.)

I'm not packing this one up after Halloween. Billy here is going to join the dolls. I'm tempted to pick up a couple more, too.

[quilleth]

Was prepared to work on the torso and hand blushing for dollbei jun yesterday or today but we're getting the drifting smoke from Canada so now I can't for at least another week because we're supposed to get a lot of rain and msc is a brat :/

[resinixupi]

My process of creating a BJD for the first time

I sculpted my own BJD-inspired little doll for the first time! Including sewing his outfit, I worked on the project over the course of December til March.

He's based on my artistic fan-rendition of dr. Nitrus Brio from the Crash Bandicoot video game series, and I'm planning to make a few of his colleagues as well! 😊 Here's some reference pics for context, for those who don't know the character.

Read on if you want to see the process of his creation!

(Heads-up; Contains censored doll nudity and loose body parts and all that~)

He's only 19cm tall (which is uncommon for adult-type BJDs (they'd usually be 40-70 cm, that's 1/4 or 1/3 scale)) and his technical design is a little crude/simplified compared to the beautiful mechanics of the BJDs I used to own, but I'm really happy with how he came out. It was quite the magical experience, because I haven't sculpted much before, nor have I sewn on this level of detail.

I figured the smaller scale would make him more easy to handle and less intimidating for a first project, but it made it a little difficult to work with at times as well!

My very first attempt was fun but had a lot of issues, I decided to start over before painting. The (extremely cheap) clay had shrunk massively, he was nowhere near hollow enough, he was a disproportional mess xD

And since he needs to be to scale with his friends later on, I decided it would be a valuable prototype. UvU

So all that happened during my Christmas break! From then on, I continued working on him little bits at a time. Quite surprisingly I managed to stay engaged and dedicated XD

This time I got actual doll-grade paperclay, which made so much difference. Amazing stuff. It was again very satisfying to see his shape forming. And this time he made it to the paint stage!

After drying out properly, I coated him first to set the clay, then used acrylic paint to give him his base skintone all over. The first layer, applied with a brush, was a blotchy mess. :x

Then I thought of sponge-dabbing it on instead, which worked wonderfully! I only realized while doing it, that it reminded me of how I applied my own bodypaint with a sponge for a blue-skinned cosplay 😊 Must've subconsciously gotten the inspiration from there lol

After his base coat, I could no longer resist and strung him😂💖

I realized it might get messy later on if I'd refuse to unstring and restring him for further painting/blushing and coating. But I figured it'd be good enough and I was having too much fun having him in his strung form XDD <33

It turned out okay, even after spray coating him strung. ^^

Painted his face, cleaned the paint off his bolts, glued eyelashes on 💕

And finally, gave him bodyblush for a little more life to him, love it!

Then I spent many nights sewing his lab coat, undies, pants, gloves and boots! 😊😊😊

I now consider him finished, and ready for cool shoots! All of this really made me relive my love for BJDs and all the crafting around it. Looking forward to make him some friends, but for now it's kinda nice to have time for other projects again as well 😂

[kosomolski-dolls]

How to spot a Recast store.

First of all, what is a recast?

A recast is an unlicensed copy of a BJD, a knockoff, a fake. Usually the dolls are bought from a legit company (sometimes not even from the recast company itself, but from supporters), a mold is made (either making a physical mold or a 3D scan) and then the dolls can be mass produced. Usually made in China, but there are exceptions to this.

I'm not going into detail here on why they are a big problem, there are tons of posts about this on the internet. They are bad, they destroy the dollmakers and artists that I love, if you're fine with that, this blog isn't for you.

This blog is for those, that want to buy legit BJDs and don't want to accidentally buy a recast, which is getting harder and harder.

I'll put this under a cut, because this is gonna get a bit lengthy.

What not to do: Google "buy BJD", you'll literally get a ton of Ali Express listings of knockoff BJDs.

You will have to do some research up front, you need to know what company you want to buy. For that, you can go to the BJD hashtag, here, on instagram, sometimes even Twitter, and see if there is something you like. Usually people also tag the company and sculpt, and if not, asking usually gets the reply.

You can also go to one of the many official dealer pages and just click through their dolls to see if you find something that you like.

Stay away from Ali Express and Amazon. Both of these pages are riddled with knockoffs. Idk if there are actually any legit sellers on Ali, if there are, they are few. I think Dollzone sells on Amazon, but seriously, most of the dolls there are fakes.

Ebay and Etsy are also full of recasts, but you can find some legit dolls there.

So, how do you spot a recast store? Let me show you some hints, that are usually a dead giveaway.

A lot of different styles.

This is the header of an etsy shop. While the two on the left might be from the same maker, the other two are very different. (The one on the right is a doll from Fairyland, one of the, if not the most recasted company out there).

Different styles only make sense, if the seller is a distributor/dealer. If it's not a dealer, back out.

Which brings us to the next point:

Generic names.

If a shop were a dealer, they would give you the names of the companies and sculpts.

Example from an official dealer:

See how you can choose the company, size, and then the sculpts? Recast shops don't give you that (there's one exception, that I'll mention later).

They give you "1/4 BJD Doll MSD", "Girl BJD 1/6" or if they wanna go all out "1/3 BJD Doll 60.5CM Full Set BJD Doll With Clothes Resin Toys Best Gift for Girls Hand Made Doll Custom Dolls OOAK Art Doll diy Dolls".

They want to stay as generic as possible, so the newbies that google for "buy bjd" will be redirected to their pages.

If you find generic names, back the hell out of there. I don't know a single company or dealer, that do not tell you what doll exactly you're buying!

Short production time

BJDs take time to make. They are not mass produced dolls, they are casted, sanded, strung and packed by small companies. Even the big names in this hobby usually are just a hand full of people. So it takes time.

Usually between 2-6 months. I don't know any company that actually gives you an estimate below 60 days. Sometimes they ship faster (maybe it's a popular sculpt and they have actually made some for stock, maybe they didn't have a lot of orders during that time, etc), but they don't usually give you a shorter timeline.

If your listing claims the doll will be shipped in 1-2 weeks? Bad news for you, that's usually a recast store.

Price

I hate to say it, but this is an expensive hobby. Dolls usually cost at least $200, oftentimes more. There are some companies that have cheaper prices, but if it goes below $150, I would definitely have a closer look.

Now, the price is usually the last thing that I mention, because before the price tag, you should check for all the things mentioned above. Only if you have a consistent style, specific names, and a timeline that makes sense, then you should check for the price.

I say that, because I know of one Recast store, that tries so hard to look legit, they actually put effort in it.

And that is the BJD Shop.

Look at that. You have company names, you have sculpt names, it looks like a legit dealer (if you ignore that their production time is 1-4 weeks).

But now look at the prices.

Not taking into account that this specific sculpt isn't even available from Fairyland anymore, the price? Is not even $100 (for blank doll).

Now let's look at the actual price by FL:

Rule of thumb: If a price is too good to be true, it very likely is.

So I recommend actually looking for the doll company, if you find a dealer you're not sure is legit, and compare the prices.

A good page for information is Den Of Angels. It's a forum, but a lot of things are easily available without account through Google. For example their dealer list. Is it complete? I don't know, maybe not, but it's a good start.

I hope this is helpful for anyone who isn't sure about a shop they want to buy from.

[otterloreart]

working on the takara bjd model and experimenting again!

I've been watching a lot of bjd videos and I started changing up the sculpt and experimenting a bit more.

I still want her to be Takara-y, ofc, but I rounded out the face, made the ears stand higher, and added larger eyes with a sculpted eyelash. I'm not sure about the eyelash, maybe people wont like that.

i gave her a little butt, but i think i have the most mixed feelings about the chest area. I want her to have that round, tubby body like the original takaras, and I sculpted the stomach really carefully. But it's always a toss-up on whether boobs will look good on an anthro, I feel. And I feel like the body shape (on the original toy) is used to be more reminiscent of a childlike character (which was common in the 1980s, like Strawberry Shortcake and Rainbow Brite); but that's not really fair for a bjd, it's probably bias because there are so few large-bodied dolls. Anyways I'm just very in my head about it, maybe I'll make a boobless and boob-ed version.

another thing i could potentially have is a double-leg joint, which is basically just an extra set of ball joints at the up so that the doll can bring its knees to its chest. I'm not really a fan of these though, i think they look too ugly for the flexibility they provide.I also am not sure how well it would work with her stomach anyways, again there aren't many fat BJD dolls for me to reference from so I'm just scaling up thin dolls and I'm not sure how well the joints would work overall.