Question for ALL. How did your collection develop/grow?

[Mary Kathryn]

As a kid I had Barbies. Lord, I wish I had kept those Barbies. I've spent quite a bit of time chasing them back down again and for some (1st Parisian Barbie with Steffie face I'm lookin' at you) I can't quite bring myself to pay the amount they command now. The first Barbie my mom bought for me was a Malibu Barbie when I was three or four years old. She was special ordered from the Sears catalog and arrived bagged instead of boxed. I remember that clearly. I preferred Barbie to baby dolls. And my Barbie dolls were there to take care of the horses and dogs.
Sometime around the age of 11 or 12 I "outgrew" my dolls and they went to the attic. (The Breyer horses remained on my shelves and I still have them.) Observe my office before the dolly hordes invaded.


I still liked to go to Toys R Us and look at the dolls, especially during the time they had the glass display case of all the collector Barbies. I never really took enough of an interest to buy any of them.
Fast forward to about 2005. A friend showed us a blog where someone had these super realistic dolls. It was a CP Lishe. She had Masterpiece Eyes Caribbean eyes in. And she was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. I started looking at prices and stumbled onto DoA. At that time there was no way I would even consider paying that much for a doll. But I just kept looking. In the meantime I stumbled across a booth in a local flea market that had a ton of gently played with Barbies. I picked up a several at a $1 each. My favorite at the time was a Midge doll.


Animal Print Fashion Fever Barbie


About the same time I stumbled onto Fashion Fever Barbies and the well made clothing packs they had at the time. I startted collecting the colorful gals and their clothes and did up until they changed over to the shorter troll body. I was active at a board called Fashion Fever Barbies that is now The Doll Cafe. I learned some basic customization tricks like how to swap heads and rehairing. I also discovered Model Muse Barbies. They weren't as common as they are now. My first MM was the 2006 Hard Rock Cafe Babs. She's still my favorite.

I am by no means a MIB kind of collector when it comes to Barbie. There are some that remain boxed but far more that have been deboxed and redressed repeatedly. I also dabbled in Silkstones but realized more and more I was putting off the inevitable. I wanted an ABJD.
I began researching to see if there was a resin doll in the 1/6 scale. I found Soom's Mini Gems and was enchanted with Uyoo. I found one for sale on e-bay and did the deed. Around May of 2007 Lizzie, and Elf Uyoo arrived. I was so excited!


Never being able to do things in a small way I brought home a second hand Mini Gem Aren. A few months later I ordered a Mini Gem Sosle with a full body blush. I don't think many people liked her as much as Uyoo and Aren. I don't think I've ever seen another one on any of the boards I post on.
Meggie - my MiniGem Sosle


Somewhere in all of this I discovered The Junky Spot. I wanted to do faceups! I wanted MOAR DOLLS!!! So I purchased a couple of 1/6 scale Obitsus and basic eyehole heads. Rose and Lilly were born.
Lilly:


As you all know at that point it was just a matter of time. I got Faith (AoD Fei) as a Christmas Present in late 2007 and it all just went to hell from there.
Faith:


Now I have a little bit of everything: resins of various sizes, Obitsus, Barbies, LIV girls Pullips, Monster High, a small collection of vintage Babs and Skippers, a 1/6 volks dollfie, a Moxie Teen, three Harajuku girls, two ellowyne Wildes and a partridge in a freakin' pear tree. XD I've had to slow down a lot due to space constraints. But I think I'm hooked for good at this point.

The very first Resin Christmas. :p


P.S.

[famedglory]

I've loved dolls for as long as I can remember. When I was a kid I had a small collection of Barbies that were mostly hand-me-downs from my sister but I gave them all away once I was in middleschool. American Girl dolls were where most of my play time went. I have Felicity and Kirsten and at some point a had a Bitty Baby although that one didn't stick. My AG's are still much beloved and waiting in storage for me to have either daughters or nieces. I also was given many porcelain dolls, the most beautiful of which are also in storage. Dollhouses were and remain my biggest love. I love tiny things. I obsess over 1" scale more than is probably healthy. I recently pulled my old doll house out of storage and am looking to revamp it. My biggest frustration was the lack of decent 1"scale dolls which is one of the biggest reasons why I've gotten into making dolls(other than because I can therefore I should). My first completed male is so very nearly done. The jointing is basically fixed and now I just have to redo the molds. I swear there will be so many pictures of him soon.

I started seeing pictures of resin BJDs sometime in highschool but always thought they were way out of my price range and that I wouldn't really get that into them even if I owned one. Several years went by and I saw some more pictures. Fell in love. Not with any one doll but just the whole of them. Decided that they were still way out my price range and decided to make my own. But it would be helpful if I actually got to see the jointing and such in person first. My fiance then went 'hey you know *insert friend's name* has several of those. We should hang out with her sometime.' So I e-mailed her, got a DoA invite and info on the local dollmeet which happened a few days later. While there I met so many awesome people and dolls. One particularly awesome woman thought it was very sad I didn't have a doll of my own so she lent me one she had up for sale. And that was Taavi, my DZ Chen. After two days in my apartment he made it his own and I bought him. A few months later at another meet I saw a Hujoo and decided I needed one. Since she was OT on DoA I looked for other forums and found DS. Yay! 6-7 months later I've ordered my second 1/3 resin. I don't think my doll family will expand too much after her. More than that and I'd feel I was neglecting them with the time I have available for them. But that could change. Who knows?

Sorry for the wall of text :)

[K2!]

25mm lead figures --> 1/6 scale garage kits --> ¼ scale PVC figures --> 1/3 scale Obitsu + nekomimi x elf = MADh Vinyl (+/- Hazel/Prima)

[kurosu.chan]

25mm lead figures --> 1/6 scale garage kits --> ¼ scale PVC figures --> 1/3 scale Obitsu + nekomimi x elf = MADh Vinyl (+/- Hazel/Prima)

Dollieh collecting equations!! <3

[1/6andtinylover]

I guess I'm at the start of my collection. But I has plushies. Lots of them.

So basically, I was gonna get a 1/6 bitsu but cheap 1/4 doll came along and got hooked. The end. For now.

[Alopecia No Hime]

It all started with a barbie then led to a point of where I had 100+ different dolls from tiny Polly Pockets, to Kellies, to babie dolls to stuffed animals.

Build-A-Bear from 8 to 10 then I played with Barbies again customizing them a tad. (Painting the nails, braiding the hair.) Then in my 10th summer someone who met me and my mom in town gave me my first American Girl doll Molly she was my most valued doll and still is. I have five AG dolls now. Molly, Emily, Kirsten, Samantha and Julie as well as Mini-Felicity, Nellie and Sam.

Then..I saw Angelic Layer as my otaku days began. I wanted to make my own Angel like on the show but sighed thinking the only way was: "To get back into dolls and mom already thinks I'm nuts." But then I saw the cosplay picture that changed EVERYTHING. Someone was cosplaying as Misaki from AL and they had an Obitsu turned into Hikaru.

I wanted an Obitsu but I didn't know jack-anything about them at the time. So I did some research, more research then fell off for awhile but then back in the summer of 2010 (14 I was thirteen when I was watching Angelic Layer. Still watch it.) I began to look into it again and decided: One way or another I was getting my Obitsu.

One Obitsu, (Haruka) turned to two, (the siblings) turned to finding an articulated doll who became Holly then I bought Ghoulia...And my collection is growing from there! Soon Spectra and little Haruhi then maybe a Moxie Teen (heard their sorta like MSD's) and the rest of the MH dolls. So yeah...That's how my collection grew. I still have most of my barbies but their in storage.

[TheHighlander]

25mm lead figures --> 1/6 scale garage kits --> ¼ scale PVC figures --> 1/3 scale Obitsu + nekomimi x elf = MADh Vinyl (+/- Hazel/Prima)

Dollieh collecting equations!! <3

It's the mad scientist in him coming out...

[Stormlight]

Hmmm ... I used to collect porcelain dolls years ago when I was a teen. Must have had twenty of them. But eventually I lost interest and gave most of them to my little sisters. Dunno what happened to them from there. They were pretty to look at but I couldn't really play with them, which is probably why I lost interest. lol

I've always loved dolls but I never really collected after the porcelains. Guess I thought I was "too old" for them. Until I happened to see a Luts elf El on DeviantArt. First time I've ever seen a bjd. It was love at first sight--followed by a minor heart attack upon learning the COST (I never spent THAT much on a porcelain doll!)--but then back to love at first sight and convincing myself to buy JUST ONE, just to see in person what they're like.

(You may all commence with the hysterical laughter. I completely understand now. You can NEVER have "just one".)

Ahem. Anyhow, it just sort of went from there. I stick mostly to resin, MSD and bigger. I like the size and weight of them. Although the tinies are growing on me, too, since they're so portable. I tried 1/6 Obitsu, but never really got into them. They just feel so delicate and easily breakable compared to resin. And their feet bug me. The girls are too small and the boys are too big. lol

Same with the 60cm Obitsu. They feel so fragile, although their posing is amazing. I also don't like that vinyl stains so easily and doesn't come out nearly as easily. I had one experience with that and haven't bought another body since, even though my poor Haruka head needs one.

[TheHighlander]

Same with the 60cm Obitsu. They feel so fragile, although their posing is amazing. I also don't like that vinyl stains so easily and doesn't come out nearly as easily. I had one experience with that and haven't bought another body since, even though my poor Haruka head needs one.

I've found the opposite. I worry continuously that my resin girls (all 1/4 scale) will get damaged, if they break or chip badly, there's nothing I can do, and they stain, not as easily as soft vinyl perhaps, but they do stain. With my big Obitsu, if a particularly obnoxious stain happens and it can't be removed, then I can easily replace the part. If a skeletal piece breaks, again it is easily replaced. To me, the Obitsu Vinyls feel robust enough, and I don't worry so much about breakage because I know it can be fixed.

[Stormlight]

Oh, resin does stain, but I find I can usually take it right off with a magic eraser. With vinyl, forget it. And it's too expensive to replace parts every time they get stained, especially when it's the torso and both legs due to the waist line of a skirt and a pair of stockings (that didn't stain any of my resin dolls) and ... yeah. ^^; Ended up selling the body at half the price I bought it at, and that was after less than a year. That was pretty much my first and last experience with vinyl. One of these days I'll get myself one of those 40cm bodies (assuming they fit a Haruka head), but I'm not in any hurry.