What a Strange Hobby You Have…
A museum of dolls, poor financial decisions, and chaotic art experiments.
This is one of my actual drawings from about 15 years ago!
The Early Years: Searching for Anatomy Reference
I got serious about art back in high school. I wanted to learn how to draw human anatomy properly, but my friends couldn’t hold a pose long enough for me to get it right. I needed something else to work with. So in 2006, after scouring the internet, I stumbled across ball-jointed dolls.
I was blown away. These were nothing like the short, fat porcelain dolls with chubby cheeks I had imagined. Nay! These were elegant, delicate, hauntingly beautiful things, with faces that looked like they had been carved by some slightly obsessive deity. I wanted one immediately.
There was a small problem: they were insanely expensive. I could not justify spending that much money on something that would only serve as a drawing reference. Thus, I bookmarked the beauties and reluctantly shuffled off to find another solution.
“These dolls were way cooler than any doll I’d ever imagined. I always hated traditional dolls, such as porcelain ones or American Girls, because they were ugly. BJDs were completely different. They were actually worth looking at."
The First Dolls: Vinyl Mistakes and Butchered Sisters
Eventually, I discovered the cheaper 22cm vinyl dolls made by Volks. I bought a small “family” of them. They were ugly, they posed horribly, and their proportions were… creative. Tiny hands, tiny feet, completely wrong. One of them ended up spray painted black in an art project (RIP “little sister"). I sold the rest on eBay a year later after discovering they had been discontinued and were suddenly worth more than I paid.
I still probably underpriced them because they sold within hours.
“Tiny hands, tiny feet...typical anime proportions. I brought these into my collage painting class to use as a reference, and my professor couldn't stop laughing."
Emotional Damage Score: 30
This is the actual image I used for my eBay listing! I hoard data too. Imagine.
She is extremely yellow now. I can't believe how white she used to be.
First BJD Love: Love at First Sight
During an internship at a graphic design company, I had earned a little extra money. In February 2011, I finally took the plunge. I found a lower-cost BJD company (Resinsoul) and a U.S. dealer (JunkySpot). On Valentine’s Day, my first doll arrived: a Resinsoul Li in white skin. I was ecstatic. And then I learned the terrible truth: you can’t stop at one. They are like potato chips for your soul; you grab one, then suddenly your life is full of them.
“Not gonna lie, while I was taking pictures of this doll, my mom mocked me for buying a doll as an adult. Emotional doll trauma officially unlocked. I am still terrified people will find out...and now my family members have found my doll Instagram account and followed me! AGH!”
Emotional Damage Score: 70
Addiction & Chaos: Too Many Dolls, No Room, No Sanity
"My collection exists in a liminal space between obsession and chaos, proof that impulse buying is a dangerous, glitter-covered drug."
Fast forward to now, and my room is completely overrun with dolls. Living in a tiny 144 square feet area makes it a huge pain to drag everything out, work on it for a few hours, and put it all back. So most of the time, I just don’t bother.
I like them too much to give them up, though, so the dolls remain in purgatory.
There is another wall...and more in the closet!
Number of dolls: Way too many
Storage Space: Zero
Debt: Don't Ask
Favorite Doll: Impossible to Pick
Current Project Status: Buried Under Chaos
"It still stings when someone mocks my hobby or lectures me about spending money on dolls instead of 'adulting.' Honestly, fuck them. My obsession, my rules, my chaos. I’ll probably still cry about it alone in the shower later, though. This is my life, my collection, and now you know how deep the rabbit hole goes!"
Emotional Damage Score: ??
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