I just discovered a Chinese company who makes various small Asian Balljointed Dolls with cute anime faceups and full outfits. These dolls use the Obitsu 11cm scale bodies and are fully strung and jointed. They are capable of standing on their feet without a doll stand.
The hair and eyes are all just painted and sculpted on which is different from most traditional BJD dolls. Another difference is that since it is a blind box, you don’t know which doll you will receive.
Another attractive difference is the price. I purchased mine at www.StrangeCatToys.com but I later found out I overpaid. 🙁read more
About 3 weeks ago I saw Parabox Otohime on facebook in a doll group where members share photos or post buy/sale posts or ask questions about asian ball jointed dolls. Someone was asking a general question about Otohime. I had never seen or heard of this doll before, although I’m no stranger to Parabox, with my first Parabox doll being Obitsu Gretel back in 2006(ish). I was immediately intrigued because she’s so big.
Fast forward to today when my Parabox Otohime arrived. I decided to spend most of the evening after work, photographing my new doll. I did a box opening video that you can watch also if it ever finishes uploading.read more
I have previously reviewed the DBS 1/3 body (larger doll body). And demonstrated how it can be used with a Dollfie Dream Head. The DBS 1/3 body is only available in a pale white color and is best suited for hybriding with the Dollfie Dream Semi White heads.
The problem was I had a lot of Dollfie Dream Fresh (or Flesh) (Normal Color) Heads… and not enough bodies for them… So one Fresh head was always on a pale body and just didn’t look right.
Most recently it’s been my DDP Ribbon head on the 1/3 DBS body because I had a custom Fresh head that looked cute on the DDP body. The DDP body is really floppy but that’s a review for another day lol.read more
A year has passed now since my first recast dolls arrived, and I have bought many other Recast BJD since then.
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My new #recastbjd #recastminifee #minifeesarang #minifee #sarang #recastfriendly #abjd #bjd #doll from #chinabjd.
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I make all of my recast purchases from Chinabjd on Aliexpress and would recommend them to anyone looking to own a recast ABJD.
I have over 20 legit dolls, and a handful (but rapidly increasing amount) of recasts, mostly fairyland minifees (although I own some legit minifees too).
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My #recastbjd #minifeemio #minifee #mio got a new outfit yesterday. #recastfriendly #kawaii #cute #chinabjd #doll #dolls #bjd #abjd #dollfairyland #fairyland #dollphotography #bjdphotography #abjdphotography
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When I first wrote my lengthy informative piece about Pros and Cons of Recast ABJD, it was mostly just research and not much first hand experience. So I thought I’d follow it up with a new post, a year later, to see how my own personal experiences went in regards to owning a recast.
All photos sprinkled in here are of my recast dolls except at the end I share another alternative that is not recast, but can help you save money, and I actually prefer that over recast, but you’ll have to stay til the end to see that :).
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#littlemimi #mimi #mimisworld #mimiscafe #catcafe #cats #dolls #toys #doll #lati #latidoll #cute #kawaii #bjd my latidoll Luna is a recast. #recastbjd #recastfriendlyread more
Hey please check out this kickstarter for a plus size balljoint doll. It’s 11 inches tall, so it’s tiny. About the height of a Barbie. But look at its voluptuous body. Barbie ain’t got curves like this girl 🙂
The doll is jointed. Yes, there are Barbies these days who are jointed too. But this doll improves on that joint system by special ankle joints that allow the doll to wear ANY style of shoes, from flats to high heels, and anything in between.
The dolls were designed by a mother of an interracial family who wanted dolls that looked more like herself and her children. The intent of the Curvy Girls movement is to promote body positivity at a young age and teach that Amazing Comes in Every Size #ACES.
I backed the pledge at the $40 level which allows me to select which doll I want to receive. But if you don’t mind receiving a random doll, you can pledge $25 and receive a random doll.
We all know balljoint dolls are super expensive. Even tiny ones, for a legit non-recast are hundreds of dollars.
But don’t be confused, there are some key differences from Curvy Girls compared to traditional balljointed dolls.
1.) They are plastic, not resin. That probably results in a large cost savings there alone
2.) Their hair is rooted. You can’t buy or swap wigs. Of course, they are offering “Customizeable dolls” but the hair is STILL rooted, it’s just unstyled, so you can cut and style it yourself. The customizeable ones also come unpainted so you can do your own faceup, just like a balljointed doll if you want.
3.) Their eyes are not removable / swapable.
But still for this price… good luck finding a jointed Barbie doll for under 25 bucks, and if you do, the joints arent as good as those of the curvygirls who have much more range of movement.
Being the same height as Barbie allows for Curvy Girls to share the same accessories, the doll house, cars, furniture, etc of a Barbie.
There are several different pledge levels. The dolls come in a basic or premium package. The premium one will have an exclusive kickstarter founder’s collector’s box not available ever again outside kickstarter. And the premium one will come with many more outfits, shoes, and accessories. The little Asian girl even comes with a robotic-looking kitty.
Each of the girls have stories and careers to match the diverse real world that curvy women are in each day in real life. Much like how Barbie can be a Doctor or Astronaut, or other traditionally male-dominated roles. Curvy Girls can also be found in various fields such as Scientists, Mechanics, Animal Rescuers, and more.
Let’s help get this kickstarter funded, pick up some cheap balljoint dolls, and promote body positivity in young women everywhere.
Here’s the official press release announcement from Curvy Girls Dolls Below.
###
CURVY GIRLS DOLLS TO LAUNCH “FAT DOLL” FOR SALE ON KICKSTARTER
Durham, NC – Curvy Girls Dolls LLC (CGD) launched a Kickstarter campaign for their “Fat Doll” on June
6, 2019. Starting at a size 18, Curvy Girls Dolls are truly plus size and will make the perfect addition to the
toy aisle.
The dolls aim to normalize people of all sizes and promote body positivity because it is important to
introduce this idea at a young age. “I grew up a chubby kid, and I never saw plus size people in the media
– at least not positively,” said CEO Joleen.
Studies have show that up to 57% of adolescent girls engage in many unhealthy ways to lose weight
because of the images reflected on TV, magazines, and social media outlets. CFO Bridget wanted to
create dolls that looked like her for her kids because there are no mainstream, inexpensive, plus size
dolls in stores. She wanted kids to have dolls that look as diverse as they do.
Four dolls will be introduced:
● Kind Aliah (Black American) – owner of an animal sanctuary
● Tough Alex (Mexican American) – activist and law student
● Smart Keiko (Japanese American) – robotics engineer
● Strong Quinn (White American) – award winning mechanic
With this Kickstarter campaign, CGD aims to generate enough buzz to hit the ground running with
production and get the dolls ready in time for the holidays. As an indy brand, fundraising is something
crucial for them and they are asking for your help. Will you help in creating a set of diverse and truly plus
size dolls?
About Curvy Girls Dolls
Curvy Girls Dolls LLC (CGD) incorporated in 2018, strives to make playtime fun for people of all sizes. It
designs, markets, and specializes in plus size dolls with unique personalities, fun fashion, and inspiring
character. CGD helps children learn and develop through play.
Children use doll play as an outlet for emotions, to explore scenarios that they may encounter, and have
control over situations. CGD aims to create dolls children play with that are as diverse as the people in
their lives. With their dolls, CGD aspires to normalize people of all sizes and promote body positivity.
CGD acknowledges that body positivity is important to introduce at a young age since children absorb so
much of their surrounding including negative self-images that can last a lifetime.
High-res images, logos and artwork can be found here: https://www.curvygirlsdolls.com/press-kit/
PR Contact: Bridget G. Co-Founder & CFO
Email: bridget@curvygirlsdolls.com
###
According to this post on the official website, the first full, non-hybrid, cortex smartdolls will release for official launch in just 2 weeks on 6/13/19. The models available will include Mirai Anniversary, Gaia, and Melody. They will be fully assembled dolls, and not model kits.
They had a soft launch of Mirai Anniversary and Gaia Complete Cortex dolls earlier this month, which I completely missed.
I am anxious to see what the prices will be on the 13th when the official launch begins.
The vinyl version Smart Dolls cost 52,000 yen, which is approximately $475 USD. For those not familiar with Japanese import dolls, such as Asian ball-jointed dolls or Dollfie Dream, this price may seem shocking. However, for those who are already collecting other similar dolls, these prices are quite reasonable.
I’ve long wanted a Smart Doll myself, but have been waiting to purchase, wanting to see how much cost savings the Cortex version will provide.
The dolls aren’t exactly the same. The Cortex version will have seam lines and gaps and other imperfections. But if the savings justifies the quality differences, I’m all for waiting for the Cortex dolls. I’m completely in the dark here as to what it will cost so I don’t even want to begin to speculate in this blog post.
The official site has much more info about the differences between the various materials that Smart Doll uses for manufacturing.
A few days ago Pre-orders opened for a Hybrid Cortex officially licensed Idol M@ster Smart Doll modeled after Mika Jougasaki. Of course it sold out quickly. Due to being an officially licensed character, this Hybrid Cortex doll actually cost much more than the vinyl versions of Smart Dolls own characters. So that’s not a very good indicator of how much the Smart Doll Complete Cortex version will cost when it launches next month. We will just have to wait and see.
Are you excited about Smart Doll Complete Cortex Dolls? Do you prefer Vinyl? Waiting for the Model Kits? Share your dolls with us in the comments below.
I recently purchased my first recast dolls (Shown in the featured image) (Sorry for the bad photo >.< I will update once their wigs and clothes arrive). Anyways, when I purchased these lil cuties I was nervous and not sure what to expect despite having done my own research as well. I own 13 and counting legit ABJD, and although I’m not super active in the doll communities I do like to share photos of my dolls and attend annual meetups or bring the dolls to conventions, and I have a small circle of about a dozen friends I’ve met through the hobby and I worried how owning a recast doll may damage those friendships.
If you’re like me, and have been considering purchasing a recast doll for awhile now, there are some things you need to know, many of which you may already be aware of. Or if you’re like some of my readers, you may have no idea what an Asian Balljointed Doll even is, or why so much controversy exists about the recast dolls.
This post aims to be “Recast Neutral” and present both sides of the argument. At the end of this article you will also find links to external resources for both Recast Friendly/Neutral and Anti-Recast resources for further reading so that you can come to your own conclusions.
Once my dolls’ wigs and clothes arrive I will also do a separate post to review the dolls here on my blog.
I understand there are strong feelings about recast dolls, but please keep the comments civil. Negative comments are fine, but comments that evoke bullying or harassment will not be tolerated. Also if it is your first time commenting on my blog, your comments will be held for moderation automatically due to a setting in the back end. I will publish all comments, yes even anti-recast comments as long as they are civil, but since I am the only moderator there may be a delay of a few days. Thank you for your understanding.
[sta_anchor id=”what-is-recast” unsan=”what is recast”]What is a Recast Asian Balljointed Doll?[/sta_anchor]
An Asian Balljointed Doll is a doll with balljoints that allow it to move and take lifelike poses. The dolls come nude, bald, without wigs, without eyes, etc. And unlike other dolls they are meant to be customized by the people who purchase the dolls. They even come unpainted. Many manufacturers offer painting services and other customizations for a fee. Others will send their dolls to “Faceup” Artists to be finished and customized.
A Recast Asian Balljointed doll is made by taking a Legit Asian Balljointed Doll, and creating a mold from the doll, then using the molds to reproduce the original dolls often times to resell to people buying them for personal use. Buying counterfeit items for personal use is not illegal in the united states. See below under legal issues surrounding copyright or visit the following source: https://consumer.findlaw.com/consumer-transactions/buying-counterfeit-goods-laws-and-resources.html
A Recast doll is basically a knock-off. Often these dolls are made in China where their copyright laws are very different from most other nations.
There is controversy and drama surrounding Recast Dolls, unlike other counterfeit items, many people feel more strongly and get more heated about Recast Dolls than say, a fake coach handbag, or fake barbie doll. But ultimately a recast Asian Balljointed doll is no different from other counterfeit items. There are pros and cons to purchasing a counterfeit items, such as more affordable price, vs quality. This post wants to help you form your own decisions on the issue at hand.
[sta_anchor id=”why-purchase-legit” unsan=”why purchase legit”]If Recasts Are Available Why Would Someone Want to Purchase a Legit Asian Balljointed Doll?[/sta_anchor]
[sta_anchor id=”support-artists” unsan=”support artists”]The number 1 reason to purchase Legit Asian Balljointed Dolls is to Support the Companies and Artists Who Create New Dolls For Everyone to Enjoy[/sta_anchor]
Without Our Financial Support, these companies cannot stay in business and cannot continue to design new dolls.
Fewer companies making dolls = fewer dolls to choose from
Less competition from doll companies = higher prices / longer wait times / quality issues as demand for dolls from the remaining companies will increase
Artists, and the companies employing these artists, deserve to be paid for their work
[sta_anchor id=”anti-recast-bullying” unsan=”anti-recast bullying”]The 2nd most important reason to purchase Legit dolls is so you can join in and be accepted and included by the majority of large doll communities both online and off.[/sta_anchor]
Most of the online communities have strict rules that forbid you from posting any photos or information about your recast dolls
Many offline meetup groups, and special doll events and conventions also have strict rules against bringing recast dolls to their events
Which they have every right to do, because it is their community, or their event.
The problem becomes when a user shares their recast outside of these anti-recast communities, there is still a butterfly affect, and backlash received from members of the anti-recast communities, who feel it is OK to bully users on their personal websites, personal social media accounts, personal emails, or even harass them in real life.
The grey area is also the case where a moderator or admin of an anti-recast community may join or browse a supposed recast friendly or recast neutral community and then decide to ban anyone it finds who also has an account in their community.
This is a big concern for a lot of people who would be more likely to be openly recast neutral or recast friendly because they fear repercussions and witch hunts from within the larger anti-recast communities even if they don’t own recasts themselves.
It’s a grey area because on one hand, it is still their community and they can moderate it as they wish. But on the other hand, if a user follows and complies with the no recast rules within the anti-recast community, that should be where their jurisdiction ends. In other words, theoretically it could also be argued that a user should be free to associate with or join other sites or with members of other sites and their activities on those sites should not impact their membership on other communities as long as they comply with the rules while within that community.
Remember that owning a recast doll, or not, if you’re participating in the recast neutral or recast friendly communities you are at risk, even if you do not own a recast doll yourself.
Many faceup artists will not work with a recast head.
There have even been horror stories of artists smashing/breaking heads and/or not returning heads to recast owners
If you do choose to do faceups on recast dolls, even if you do not own any recast dolls yourself, you are forbidden from advertising your faceup services even for legit dolls in many of the large online communities which hurts your ability to promote your services and affects your profitability.
Even if you find and join recast neutral or recast friendly communities, there are “spies” and “cyberbullies” from anti-recast communities who can find you and not only ban you from their communities, but also publicly humiliate and harrass you online or off.
Even if you yourself do not own a recast doll, and merely want to label yourself as “recast neutral” that means you don’t buy recasts, but you don’t care if others buy recasts, these “spies” will label you as “Recast Friendly” and bully and harrass you the same as they would an actual owner of recast dolls.
I was in a number of facebook groups when the whole recast neutral thing first took off a few years ago. I merely wanted to say, hey, I don’t really care what you do with your money, that’s up to you, and to label myself AGAINST all this cyber bullying drama that goes on in the hobby.
But I left the communities due to fear of becoming a victim of bullying myself by association with those owning recast dolls.
On one hand, I see the bully’s point of view, if you are “turning a blind eye” from the problems of art theft and copyright infringement, you are enabling others to continue to purchase recasts
But on the other hand, similarly, if you “turn a blind eye” on all the cyber bullying and drama, you’re enabling users to continue to cyber bully, threaten, and harm other users as well.
You might think, well they own a recast so they deserve to be bullied or threatened but you don’t know anything about this person and owning a recast doll is far from the worst thing a person could do.
Many people take the bullying to such extremes that it becomes very stressful for the victim and spills into many other aspects of their daily life.
Many people view owning a recast as negatively as robbing a bank, or other “large scale” theft. Which is blown pretty out of proportion. For one thing, owning or purchasing a recast (yes even when you know it is a recast) is NOT illegal in the United States as long as it’s for personal use, while other forms of theft and robbery are illegal. Source: https://consumer.findlaw.com/consumer-transactions/buying-counterfeit-goods-laws-and-resources.html
I’m not saying owning a recast is perfectly OK or that there are not victims or consequences that the industry experiences, or that recasts should be viewed as widely acceptable, but it’s far from the level of extremity that many anti-recast users view it as and does not necessarily instantly make someone the scum of the earth or invalidate them as a person. People all have flaws, weaknesses, sins, etc. Not a single one of us on this Earth is perfect.
Many anti-recast people jump to wild unfounded illogical accusations / assumptions / conclusions about the people owning a recast about their other morals, characteristics, personality traits, and personal life that make the person appear as scum.
They tell everyone to shun and not associate with this person. Even if they already know or are friends with the recast owner.
This is in my opinion horrible, encouraging people to end years long friendships because their friend owns a recast
Encouraging friends to shun and not associate with their friends who own recasts, and even encouraging them to join in on the cyber bullying against recast-owning friends
If you choose to end a friendship with someone because they own a recast doll, you’re not a good friend.
I personally don’t care if a friend owns a recast doll. It doesn’t matter to me. It doesn’t change my opinion of them, and it doesn’t break our friendship or invalidate what I already know to be true of that person.
Friendships aren’t about doll drama. Friendships are about shared memories and experiences built together over time and about other personal traits and qualities.
Being a good person, or a good friend, isn’t automatically negated by owning a recast doll. That’s silly. I much rather have a friend who cares about me as a person, makes time for me, gives me good advice, shares things in common with me, does things for other people, makes me laugh, smart, fun, funny, witty, caring, warm, etc. Owning a recast doesn’t negate all those other things or the years of history we’ve built together.
This is just hypothetical as I don’t know anyone who actually owns a recast, before you want to witch hunt or harrass any of my friends, I’m just saying that if I discovered one of them did own a recast doll, it wouldn’t really change my opinion of them. My love for my friends goes deeper than if they own a recast doll or not.
In my own opinion, and in that of many recast neutral / recast friendly users, owning a recast doll is no different from downloading a “free” mp3 without the artist’s permission / without funds going to the artist. It’s no different than owning a fake Coach purse handbag, or fake pair of “designer” jeans or sunglasses. It’s no different from watching a stream of a mostly text/visual video game (visual novel, otome game, most rpgs, etc), or no different from watching a new release movie online for free.
All of these things are crimes and “wrong” – but how many people, including yourself and your friends do at least 1, or more of these actions? If it’s up to the cyber bullies, you should end all friendships and relationships with these people.
I’m not saying everyone does these actions (downloading MP3s, owning knock off fashion items, watching movies online, using their friends’ netflix accounts, or etc)
But I am saying, think about someone you know who does these things… If you don’t know anyone who does those things, picture hypothetically that you discover a very good friend has done this. Would you automatically hate that person and never hang out with them or talk to them ever again? I doubt it. You’d be more likely to remember all the times that friend was there for you, that they did something nice for you, nice for their community, nice for their country, nice for their other friends, nice for their kids, nice for their spouse or significant other, or nice for a random stranger even.
You might be thinking, oh my friend is so nice and so good, and so moral they would never own a recast doll (or download an mp3, or watch a movie online, or buy knock-off fashion items or login to their friends’ netflix account, or etc.) — But the reality is, there are millions of people like your friend who is so nice, and so good, and so moral (in other areas of their life perhaps) that DO own a recast doll, (or download mp3s, and etc). Owning a recast doll, doesn’t necessarily make someone deserving of the extreme levels of bullying that exist in the hobby.
You have no right to make assumptions about a person, especially regarding their character, their personal life, their moral judgement. Yes they made a poor moral choice buying a recast doll. However, there are far worse things than owning a recast doll. There are people who lie, who cheat, or murder, who commit adultery, have affairs, harm animals, harm children, commit fraud, or numerous other more serious crimes / immoral decisions.
And owning a recast doll does not automatically make someone more likely to commit these other more serious crimes / immoral decisions, not anymore or any less likely than anyone else.
The wild jumps to conclusions / assumptions about people’s personality traits, morality, and judgement are where I take huge issue with a lot of the “anti-recast” drama. – If they left the personal assumptions aside, and just made it about the dolls, that’s one thing that no one could really take issue or offense with, but instead, they launch these horrible personal attacks and witch hunts, and in my opinion that behavior is way worse than owning a recast doll. If you ask me who I rather be friends with, I would choose the person owning the recast doll, any day, over the person who is committing cyber bullying and harassment.
If you own a “mix” of legit and recast dolls, it tarnishes your name/reputation in the community, and may hinder your enjoyment of the community aspects of your legit dolls. Once you’re labeled as owning a recast, even if you own 20 legit dolls, and 1 recast, that 1 recast reflects so strongly against you that most anti-recast communities will treat you poorly even if you never share that 1 recast anywhere on their community and only share your legit dolls. Once you are discovered to own recast dolls it is a big risk. Are you willing to take that risk? You have to ask yourself how important is being part of the community to your enjoyment of the dolls? Not everyone cares about sharing photos of their dolls or participating in meetups, etc. But if you do, then owning a recast is sure to bring you a lot of misery and stress.
For example, you might post pictures of your legit dolls, with or without your recast dolls, on your own personal site or social media, and you might receive negative comments, even if that picture contains no recast dolls, because maybe your account has other pictures that do have recast dolls.
Online drama in other communities:
There are hashtags that many of the anti-recast users want recast owners to use.
Many recast owners are afraid to “oust” themselves by admitting to owning a recast doll because they know:
1.) that it is wrong
2.) that they will have to suffer cyber bullying and possible repercussions from other communities and users.
Other recast owners do not even know they should be tagging their dolls as recasts, because they do not participate in the anti-recast communities where these hashtag “rules” originated.
Anti-recast communities and their members try to enforce their views/rules/regulations outside of areas of their control (such as wanting to enforce hashtags or ban photos of recasts from popular social media sites, such as instagram, youtube, twitter, or going as far as wanting to shut down or bully users who build websites for their recast dolls, not to sell their dolls, but maybe to share photos, roleplay, write stories, character descriptions, and so on.)
In reality though, the only thing they can really do is report the content to the site owners, such as reporting your content to youtube or facebook for violating some sort of facebook or youtube policy about bootleg items if even such a policy exists hypothetically speaking.
Even if you are just posting the recast dolls on your own personal websites / social media pages, you will get a lot of hurtful comments from anti-recast users so you must be prepared to deal with the cyberbullying that comes with owning a recast. You must have very thick skin. The comments do not stop at just remarks about your dolls, but remarks about you as a person, your morals, your ethics, and even calling into question details of your personal life, relationships, or other drama, anything they can find against you, they will use to their advantage to shame you for owning a recast. Some remarks even go as far as telling recast doll owners to kill themselves, or talking about breaking, burning, trashing, or harming the recast dolls, and or even suggesting committing theft and property damage or even bodily harm of recast doll owners, through doxxing (posting private details online such as address or phone numbers) or other harmful cyber bully tactics.
Or you could always just always keep your recast to yourself, do not ever mention owning a recast and never show photos of your recast or take them to events, even ones labeled as recast friendly, for fear of being discovered. But this eliminates your ability to enjoy many aspects of the hobby which may be important to you.
This is a lot to think about – and even if you don’t care about supporting the artists, chances are, you do care about being bullied and/or want to enjoy your dolls with other members of the doll community. You should really think carefully about if you can withstand the cyberbullying and about what you are giving up or missing out on by owning a recast. If it is your first doll, chances are you want to do all of the things that come with owning a doll and being part of the hobby and community. Owning a recast will paint a large target on your back right from day one and forever tarnish your reputation in many online and offline doll communities. Once you own a recast you can never redeem yourself in the eyes of most of the community. Even if you sell or throw away or give away your doll, you will always be looked at with suspicion by the anti-recast community.
That suspicion even spills over to those who have never owned a recast before; there have been countless instances of someone owning a legit and being accused and bullied for owning a recast, when the doll was in fact legit to begin with.
The best way to protect yourself against cyber bullying is to never purchase a recast, and always keep your COA, box, and other items, as well as registering your dolls online if the specific company where you purchased your doll from allows registration.
[sta_anchor id=”quality-control” unsan=”quality control”]The 3rd reason to purchase Legit dolls is concerns over quality or communication and for more peace of mind/buyer’s protection[/sta_anchor]
Even many anti-recast communities admit that newer recasts have improved in both quality and communication practices and that it is getting more difficult to easily spot a recast based solely on quality alone.
However, just like not all legit doll companies have the same levels of quality assurance, the same goes for different recasters. Some recasters have higher quality and better communication than others.
Even those recasters with higher quality sometimes make mistakes or deliver poor goods, just like even some high quality legit doll manufacturers sometimes make mistakes.
The most common quality issues surrounding recasts include:
Shrinkage; when a recast is made, they use an existing legit doll as a mold. When that mold gets old, new molds are created from the mold of a recast, as time goes on, each mold gets slightly smaller and smaller and the resulting doll therefore gets smaller and smaller too.
As a result of shrinkage and/or the molding process, there is sometimes a loss of detail around fine areas such as the eyes, nose, lips, or ears of the recast doll.
Another issue is often the magnets used to attach fantasy parts or hands/feet are weaker than those supplied by the legit companies.
Sometimes too there will be wrong magnets, where it repells the body part instead of attract, making it impossible to assemble.
Stringing and other issues internally in the doll can result in a doll with inferior posing abilities compared to the legit versions.
Sometimes dolls arrive with two left feet, legs, or other mismatched body parts, this is perhaps the worst flaw of all because it significantly affects pose-ability.
Sometimes dolls arrive broken, damaged, etc in shipping. Sometimes shipments get lost. Sometimes they send you completely the wrong dolls or wrong parts.
When this happens sometimes you’re left with poor customer service (or no response at all) and lose your money and receive damaged goods or no goods at all.
Even legit doll companies can have issues with quality control or communication; however, the problems seem more common with the recast companies. Some people get perfect dolls and perfect, prompt, friendly polite customer service even from recasters. It just depends. It seems most legit doll companies have a better more consistent record at providing better quality products and customer service.[sta_anchor id=”abjd-variety”]
The 4th reason to purchase Legit dolls is a wider variety and a larger selection to choose from.
[/sta_anchor]
Although dozens, maybe even hundreds, of dolls have been recast, not all dolls have been recast yet. Recasters only buy dolls they think will be popular enough to sell many units. Even though recasters have cloned many dolls, there are thousands more that they do not offer.
If the doll you really love has not been recast, you should save your money to get a doll you love, and not just settle for one you like. In the long run, you won’t be happy, because you’ll always be comparing the doll you have, to the doll you’ve seen that you really wanted but couldn’t afford.
You might say but I will never afford it, or even if I could afford it, I’d feel so bad spending so much money on a doll.
There are numerous distributors which offer layaway options, even some of the doll manufacturers offer layaway too to help ease the financial burden.
You will love your doll more if you have to work hard for it. It will be precious to you. It will mean something to you. Just like anything in life, things feel BEST when you earn them through hard work, instead of things just being given to you with minimal effort.
Even if you are a child, or you are disabled, or you are elderly, or some other reason you cannot have a traditional job, there are ways you can make income to fund your hobbies.
Here are a few examples that anyone can do:
Start a blog – you might not get rich, but you’d be surprised how much you can earn each month. For example my little blog here averages between 100-300 a month. There are many many dolls in this price range, that could be a doll a month. I use my blog all the time as my “hobby money” buying things like games, dolls, anime, cosplay, or whatever. It feels “good” to me, because I’m not taking the income out of my regular paycheck, nor am I using expensive credit cards with high interest rates, and I’m “earning” things for my hobby through hard work and dedication.
Take up crafting, especially doll related crafting. You can sell wigs, eyes, clothes, faceup services, etc. And then you will have left over materials, and a lot of experience and skills making these items for when you finally have a doll of your own.
Even if you don’t have experience or talent making anything, you can always learn! There are so many tutorials online, and it’s fun and part of owning a doll that many collectors enjoy in the hobby.
You can start with smaller less expensive doll clothing/eyes/wigs such as for pullip, blythe, icy dolls, and etc. This way you can purchase a doll to get exact measurements and have a doll to model your finished pieces to help sell and promote your items more quickly.
Have a yard sale, or ebay if you prefer to do it online, to get rid of old items you no longer need. You’d be surprised what some people collect that you no longer want, such as old toys, clothes, housewares, home goods, video games, anime goods, etc.
Do chores – even if you’re a tiny child, ask your parents, friends, family members, neighbors, etc if you can earn 20 bucks helping them do chores that you normally don’t do.
Here are a few examples:
Shovel snow
Rake leaves
Wash cars
Walk dogs
Babysitting (for older kids / teens)
Cleaning challenging rooms/areas such as attics, garages, basements, etc.
Helping with computer, internet, printer, and other technological devices
Running errands
Delivering groceries or other items
Uber or Lyft driving (for teens/adults)
Lemonade Stand / Baked Goods sales
Online surveys
Create virtual items in free games such as IMVU and Secondlife, then sell the in-game currency for real money
Write and self publish a book or ebook and sell it on amazon or similar
Photography for older kids/teens, see if friends and family members will pay you to capture special moments, such as wedding/engagement photos, baby announcements/baby photos, family portraits, etc. Don’t be afraid to ask for money. At my first wedding, a friend of the groom was our photographer, but he still charged us 200 dollars – which was cheap really because we had him for the whole day (10+ hours).
Many other ideas and suggestions I have probably forgotten – there are many ways you can earn money to get the doll you really want. You just have to be creative and think outside the box! Age, disability, or other factors are just an excuse. They may hinder you from having a “real” job, but don’t have any impact on many other things you can do to earn money “on the side”.
[sta_anchor id=”abjd-value”]The 5th and “final” (at least for this post) reason for purchasing Legit dolls is to help maintain the value of the dolls.[/sta_anchor]
Doll collecting is an expensive hobby. Even many US dolls are worth a lot of money on the second hand market, like old barbies, my little ponies, etc.
When something goes out of production, it’s a simple lesson in supply and demand. As supplies decrease and/or demand increases, prices also increase. But as supplies increase, and/or demand decrease, prices decrease.
Many limited edition Asian Balljointed Dolls are EXTREMELY limited. Sold only for a month, or even some only for a few days. I think my Crobidoll Sinbi was only available for about 4 days – And even “better” inside her headcap it says “01” – I think maybe she was the first Crobidoll Sinbi to ever be produced. I feel extremely excited / proud about that.
Another example is my Iplehouse Claude, currently my most expensive Asian Balljointed Doll. I paid over $900 for him. He used to just be a standard doll, that Iplehouse sold, but then they decided to retire him. Now he is only available very rarely and for only a few days at a time. And his price has increased. They do open him up for sales, I don’t know if it’s yearly. I don’t believe so at least. They occasionally have “auctions” on Iplehouses site, or have “Custom” sales where you can order any head (from a list of available heads, in which Claude is not always offered).
Another example is many Dollmore dolls do limited editions of like 10 dolls. That’s it. TEN. Once they’re gone, they’re gone forever. And they sell them WORLDWIDE.
To put it into perspective, a European doll manufacturer that I collect, called Masterpiece Dolls, also makes limited edition dolls that they sell “Worldwide” but you know how many “limited” dolls they release? 10,000…. That doesn’t even sound limited at all!!! (but yet they do sell out and there are some highly sought after ones on the 2nd hand market)… Now imagine that “hype” times 1,000…. That’s how rare and sought after some limited edition Asian Balljoint dolls are! There are even companies such as Volks which make “One Off” dolls, where there is only ONE in the whole world. (my dream is to someday own one of those lol)
Now imagine the rage and hatred that someone feels when someone recasts and makes unlimited numbers of a limited edition doll. Suddenly you go from having 1 or 10, to having thousands, and growing as time goes on…
This kills the 2nd hand market for a user who may one day wish to resell their doll. Why they would want to resell their doll, is their business. Some people fall on hard times, other people outgrow the hobby, or some just want the money to spend on more newer dolls.
Back in 2005, a user might pay $600 for a limited doll, and be able to later resell it for 2 to 3 times the purchase price (1200-1800 typically, and sometimes for really sought after sculpts, 3000 dollars and up)
But along come recasters, and with that, there goes the 2nd hand market.
Why would someone want a yellowed, possibly cracked, stained, used doll for $3,000 dollars, when they can get a brand new mint condition doll for $200?
You can easily see how this destroyed the 2nd hand market.
Nowadays people have trouble selling 2nd hand dolls, and the recasters are one of the primary reasons.
To prove that it is a primary reason, you can look at other similar asian dolls which have not yet been recast, such as Dollfie Dreams or Smart Dolls, and you can see how the 2nd hand market is thriving there. Many extremely old Dollfie Dreams go for $3,000 and up still today.
These dolls haven’t been recast because they have intricate and delicate parts inside of them such as a spine system that allows for greater stability, flexibility, and poseability. Recasters have not figured out how to engineer these internal pieces, which for now, keeps them safe from recasters.
Not only the 2nd hand market, but also the “uniqueness” and “pride” in owning a limited doll. It kills that special fun, super exciting feeling of exclusivity. I’m sure they still love their doll just the same, but it kills some of the magic and excitement.
Suddenly you see photos that look like your doll plastered all over the internet.
Sure yours might be painted differently, styled differently, different wig, different eyes, different clothes, different faceup, but still it is disheartening to go from seeing maybe 3-4 other users posting pictures of “your” doll, to seeing hundreds or thousands of users posting the same sculpt all over.
One of the best things about the hobby is how unique and different everyone’s dolls look, even when it’s the same sculpt, but sculpt too does have an effect, and when you think you’re buying a rare sculpt, for someone to then go and recast that doll, and ruin its rarity, it’s really devastating. It’s a horrible feeling.
[sta_anchor id=”why-buy-recast-abjd” unsan=”Why Buy Recast ABJD”]What Are the Reasons Someone Would Want a Recast Asian Balljointed Doll?[/sta_anchor]
[sta_anchor id=”how-much-do-recast-abjd-cost?” unsan=”How Much Do Recast ABJD Cost?”]Lower Price[/sta_anchor]
Obviously the biggest reason to purchase recast dolls is the more attractive price point. As mentioned above when discussing the 2nd hand market and limited edition dolls, many Asian Balljointed Dolls go for hundreds or even thousands of dollars. You can get the same doll, brand new, and not used, for a fraction of the cost.
How much money are we talking here?
Some recast sculpts are more money than others – I think they like to take advantage of the popularity and rare availability of certain sculpts
Doll size is also a consideration, larger dolls use more materials and cost more to manufacture, and are heavier and cost more to ship, therefore they have higher prices.
Tinies, YOSD, Puki’s, Latidolls, etc. are all very very affordable. Even some MSDs are insanely affordable.
I purchased my 2 recasts during an anniversary event where there was an even greater discount off the already low recast prices.
Regularly, the little recast latidolls are around $65 with a faceup, or $40-$50 for a blank doll
They go for $200 and up for a blank Lati Yellow from Lati Doll.
Because of the sales event, I got mine for $55 with a faceup and shipping and handling.
I didn’t pay much more than that for the much much larger / heavier Littlefee Pong, which was under $65 for faceup and shipping and handling
Littlefees go for $285 and up (not counting faceup or shipping) from Fairyland – more than 4 times the amount I paid.
Since we’re talking about Fairyland, the MSD line goes for $397 on Fairyland’s site, or only $47 from the recaster that I ordered my Lati and Littlefee from (both prices are for blank dolls, both prices go up slightly for a faceup). This is almost 10 times more than the cost of a recast MSD.
The recaster has almost every MSD sculpt – but not all of them. I don’t see Shiwoo and there’s probably others the recaster is missing as well 🙂 They do have littlefee Shiwoo though.
The SD and larger dolls start to get a lil bit pricey even from the recasters. However, they are still much much cheaper than their legit counterparts from their original manufacturers.
The SD dolls are almost all $100 and up, with most being $200 and up. Most are still under $300, even for instances in where the legit are rare, limited, or discontinued.
This may sound expensive to some not familiar with the hobby, but the Legit SD sized dolls regularly go for $600-800 for a standard, non limited, regular SD sized BJD, and even up from there. I’ve seen some companies charge $900, or even $1,000 or more for a limited edition doll.
To remain neutral I should also note that there are some Legit companies which offer SD dolls for under $300 too. I will add several of these dolls to the resources section at the end of this article.
The prices of being in the hobby, don’t just stop at the dolls either. There are eyes and wigs and clothes and shoes and props and accessories and furniture and even if you plan to make everything by hand, you still have to factor in materials and the value of your time.
Spending less on the actual dolls themselves gives you more money to spend on “all the rest” of the things you’ll need to buy for the dolls.
Not everyone values money the same way. Some people could afford Legits, but don’t want to spend the money when to them a recast is just as good. Just like to some people they could afford a coach handbag or designer glasses, but they don’t see the “value” in it, when to them the knockoff or counterfeit versions are just as good.
[sta_anchor id=”limited-abjd” unsan=”limited abjd”]Availability of Discontinued or “Limited Edition” Dolls[/sta_anchor]
As I mentioned above under preserving the value of the dolls, many companies manufacture limited edition dolls. Now you might be familiar with limited dolls from European or North American manufacturers as having hundreds or thousands or even tens of thousands of units in production… but that is not the case for a limited edition Asian Balljointed Doll. Not at all!
Most are limited by a time frame window. They take an unlimited number of orders but only for a short period lasting a few days, up to a week, the longest I’ve ever seen for a limited ABJD was a month long ordering window.
Others are limited by the manufacturers producing only a small number of dolls to sell.
And by small I mean SMALL!!! Not hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands.
Dollmore usually does 10, and that’s for WORLDWIDE distribution.
Other companies like Volks even make “One Off Dolls” where there’s only ONE in the whole world.
Once it’s gone, that’s it, it will never be offered again.
This is good for the Resell 2nd hand market and for creating excitement for the companies to sell more dolls and also creating a proud exciting feeling for those who are lucky enough to own such a doll (man I LOVE that feeling..).
But “bad” for someone who wants a specific doll. Imagine just finding the hobby today, and missing out on 20+ years of limited edition dolls.
Those dolls are highly sought after and have high market value, which makes them very expensive, sometimes up to $3,000 for a 2nd hand doll.
All resin yellows over time, this is fact. I still have my very first ABJD that I purchased in 2006, and it’s yellow as hell. To the point where I don’t play with or display it, but it’s still near and dear to my heart and will never be sold.
My first doll was a Dollzone Demi
It was not limited, but for whatever reason, Dollzone no longer offers Dollzone Demi anymore. The sculpt has been retired, etc. The company has moved a completely different direction, and its apparently working for them, and they have a lot of fans, but honestly (most of) their newer dolls scare the hell out of me and gross me out lol.
I would love to purchase a new, mint condition Dollzone Demi, one that’s not yellow, and preferably one with a company faceup since mine just has my bad attempts at my first (and 2nd, 3rd, etc) faceups.
But I can’t purchase it from Dollzone as it’s been discontinued, and I don’t think it was ever recast either, so I’m stuck with my yucky yellow doll that I still love very much. If I could buy another Demi from Dollzone I definitely would buy another Demi right now today this very moment. I could buy another on the 2nd hand market (assuming I could find one) but they’d be just as yellow as mine as 12 years have passed now.
If it would have been recast, I could have just “replaced” my dolls as they began to yellow. (although I’d still keep my original dolls, especially Demi since she was my first).
In this way, I can really understand fully why someone want want a recast doll – No one wants yellow banana babies.
Other times, a Legit doll company goes out of business forever. And their dolls are no longer available. There may not even by (m)any on the 2nd hand market either! Or the ones on the market place may have small defects and imperfections since they are used and probably several years old now. And as those are sold, fewer and fewer remain. Overtime, eventually it becomes impossible to buy a Legit of one of their dolls.
There are recast versions of many dolls from many manufacturers who have gone out of business. Dream of Doll comes to mind off the top of my head, but I’m sure there are others.
I know that the fact there are recast versions of the dolls may have been what led to them going out of business in part or in whole, and I can’t deny that.
But in some cases, the Legit companies have gone out of business due to bad service or poor quality or just the economy.
And many other companies where almost every sculpt have been recast are still selling dolls and still profitable, because they offer good quality and good service, or just make really attractive sculpts or well engineered dolls, or unique dolls, etc.
Whatever the case is, buying a Legit from those companies who close down is no longer possible as the company no longer exists.
You may get lucky and find one in reasonable shape and at a reasonable price on the 2nd hand market, but you might not find the doll, or it might have scratches or stains, or other flaws on the 2nd hand market, or it might be very expensive since the seller knows you can no longer purchase the doll from the manufacturer.
In times like these people often feel justified in purchasing a recast doll and many, like myself, feel that if the company still sold the sculpt they wanted, or if the company was still in business, they’d purchase the legit.
Many people don’t want yellow dolls, scratched dolls, stained dolls, dolls with poor faceups, dolls that need to be restrung, dolls that have had extensive modding, or etc.
Many Anti-Recasters argue to “Save for the Doll You REALLY want” — but what if the doll you REALLY want is from a company who is out of business and there’s not any dolls in the 2nd hand market? Then they tell you, buy a doll that looks like that doll, or wait and see if any come on the 2nd hand market, or etc.
But I disagree. I think you should ALWAYS go for the doll you REALLY want, and since that company is out of business, you’re not even hurting the company or artist.
It can be argued though you’re hurting other artists and other companies, because the recasters will take your money to purchase more legit dolls to use as molds for their recasts
But I still say, go for the doll you REALLY want, if it’s Legit, or if it’s only available as a recast. If it’s a 2nd hand doll and yellowed and stained, if that’s not what you want, you want a new doll, hey it’s your money. And remember if it’s for personal use it’s not illegal (in the US), and the only harm is that you’re hurting the 2nd hand market, or angering the owners of the original dolls, but still, that shouldn’t force you to feel bullied into buying a doll you don’t want.
No one wants that banana green doll with a chipped finger and black stains from their wig and peeling faceup that you’re charging $1,200 for. I’m sorry.
If it was me, doing the shopping, and I could only get the Legit from you…
And assuming it was poor quality, because I also know there are 2nd hand dolls that are in great condition. I’ve purchased 2nd hand dolls myself!..
But if my only options were a really bad quality 2nd hand doll at 3 times the original price that it was when it was brand new from the manufacturer, and there was no other option because the company no longer existed, and even if no recast “new” “mint condition” version existed, I would just not buy the doll at all, I STILL wouldn’t be buying your overpriced poor condition used banana baby regardless of if a recast was offered of that sculpt or not. Sorry but that’s how I feel.
Recasting does indeed hurt the 2nd hand market, absolutely, because there are hundreds of other dolls who are still available from the manufacturer who can be found recast for like a 1/10 of the price of the legit. And many people will buy the recast version instead of the legit, making it more difficult to sell your used legits when they can get a brand new recast at a tenth of the price. Plus there are probably others who WOULD probably buy your little discontinued or limited banana colored baby, but not me. If it was in good condition, sure I’d buy it 2nd hand, don’t get me wrong.
But over time, as such is the case with my 12 year old Dollmore Demi there just aren’t any options that AREN’T yellow and/or stained or flawed etc.
Which means that, some of those people you are harassing and cyberbullying would never have bought your 2nd hand market doll(s) in the first place.
Some of the people purchasing recast would never buy your banana baby dolls even if they couldn’t get the doll “brand new” they would just either get a different doll or no doll at all…
And still leave you unable to sell your used doll to them because they just aren’t wanting to purchase a doll that looks so used.
So AT LEAST PART of the argument of the market place devastation due to recasters, is in fact quite flawed, and it’s also part of the reason behind the cyberbully attacks.
Which is what the bullies just don’t understand. It’s not as if removing all recasts would instantly allow them to sell their dolls at premium prices. It just doesn’t work that way.
[sta_anchor id=”hybrid-resin-matching” unsan=”Hybrid Resin Matching”]To Have a “Hybrid” Doll More Easily[/sta_anchor]
Many people worry about “Resin Matching” when wanting to create a Legit Hybrid Doll. This refers to the colors of the resin, Since as we know resin yellows over time, this can make it even more challenging. Not only do you need to find a company whose resin color closely matches your existing head, but you need to worry about if your head has yellowed, and how it will look on the new body. Even if your head is brand new, there are slight color variations between each batch of resin.
But recasting takes away all of this worry. You can mix and match a head from Company B, on a Body from Company C, with a Resin color from Company D. All cast from the same batch of resin.
Why would someone want a hybrid doll?
Not all dolls are created equal – some are just FAR better posers than others. Or others have more aesthetically pleasing bodies.
But maybe they don’t have the right face for the doll you want
Maybe you want a different face, or a different body. Maybe you just like the way the body is shaped. As time has gone on, companies have gotten more experimental with their bodies, making some with big heads, big hips, big busts, animal/fantasy parts, exaggerated cartoon proportions, child like bodies, more mature bodies, etc.
[sta_anchor id=”curious-about-recast-abjd” unsan=”Curious About Recast ABJD”]Out of Curiosity[/sta_anchor]
Why does anyone do anything “bad” that they know they shouldn’t do? Simple, curiosity. A recent release movie had a good quote that said “You can’t teach people to not try things, that’s what trying things is for” In other words people learn by trying things, even bad things that other people think they shouldn’t do.
My recast purchase was mostly out of curiosity. A combination of curiosity and unbeatable pricing. I was like I wonder if the quality is as good as my legit dolls, I wonder if the things everyone says (both good or bad) are true. I want to find out first hand.
I had been reading about both sides of the debate for years. I’d seen photo comparisons and I knew the risks and the benefits of both sides of the issue. I carefully researched which recaster to purchase from, read reviews, both positive and negative, and did my homework.
But reading and understanding something from 2nd hand information just can’t compare to experiencing it for yourself and making your own decisions
It’s like reading a restaurant review; you might hear they have the most delicious food, but until you taste it, you can’t be sure. Different people like different tastebuds and preferences.
First hand experience can’t be beat. It lets you learn without any one elses’ bias or opinion influencing your decisions.
And you might come to find that your opinion based on that first hand experience is so different from anything you’d heard or read, or thought you knew or think you understand.
Until you try it, how can you know?
I’m glad I tried it. Prior to this, I’d say I leaned more towards Anti-Recast but now I definitely side with Recast Friendly and plan to purchase more recasts in the future. This comment will bring me some flames I’m sure, but I’m being very candid, open, and upfront in this article, and have been very candid and open on my social media channels and elsewhere.
[sta_anchor id=”new-vs-used-abjd” unsan=”New VS Used ABJD”]To Have a “New” Doll Instead of a “Used” Doll[/sta_anchor]
I covered this at length a few paragraphs above under the availability of limited or discontinued dolls.
Resin yellows and stains easily
Many people don’t want yellow or stained dolls.
Other flaws include chips and scratches, broken fingers, etc
Many older dolls will need to be restrung
Others have peeling faceups that need refreshed or removed
If a recast of that sculpt is available it gives you a chance to own a doll in mint brand new condition instead of having to settle for damaged goods
I want to stress the fact that not all 2nd hand dolls are yellowed, flawed, chipped, stained, etc.
Many are perfectly fine.
I myself have purchased 2nd hand dolls before with no issues.
Even if the doll is perfectly fine though, many people would still rather have a new doll as opposed to a used doll.
Just as there are many perfectly fine things at your local goodwill, even things with tags still attached that have never been used before.
But if someone can buy item X at goodwill for $35 or item X at walmart brand new for $2 where do you think they’re shopping? Not only does it cost less, but it’s brand new too. Now imagine multiplying that price by 10 or 100 times and compare the value.
I understand this angers a lot of people in the hobby, but the fact is that it’s not JUST about the recasts. That’s not the sole reason the market place has crashed. Some people just really don’t want your yellow stained banana babies and would not buy it even if they had no alternatives (such as recasts)
Anti-Recasters always say get the doll you really want.
But the doll some people really want isn’t a yellowed, stained, chipped, cracked, peeling, floppy version of that doll
For some people the doll they really want is a brand new doll. End of story.
[sta_anchor id=”fantasy-resin-skin-tones” unsan=”Fantasy Resin Skin Tones”]To Have a Doll in a Fantasy or Unique “Skin” (Resin) color[/sta_anchor]
If you want a purple or green or black or grey or snow white or magenta colored doll, you can request different resin colors from recasters that were not offered by the original manufacturer.
[sta_anchor id=”practice-abjd-faceups” unsan=”Practice ABJD Faceups”]To Have a Doll that They Can Practice Faceup Skills and Modding on.[/sta_anchor]
Spending $50-$100 as opposed to $500-$1,000 on a doll can make people feel more comfortable to enjoy artistic aspects within the hobby such as painting, sanding, or customizing their dolls.
Similarly related, many just feel more comfortable taking the doll outdoors, doing creative photoshoots, or merely handling or playing with a less expensive doll. Some people feel that if they spent several hundred on a doll that they would be too nervous to enjoy the doll. You might think that their fears are strange / silly / stupid or tell them that that’s what the dolls are for, to handle and enjoy, but many others, especially first time owners, feel differently. You have to remember not everyone has the same view points, personalities, attitudes etc towards things.
[sta_anchor id=”new-to-abjd” unsan=”New to ABJD”]To See If They Want to Collect Asian Balljointed Dolls[/sta_anchor]
Many people buy recast and then later on buy legit.
Some people can feel intimidated to throw down $500 and up on a doll when they’re not sure if they’ll even like it.
A smaller price point makes the dolls more accessible to people who either wouldn’t or couldn’t spend the money on a legit “at first”
But they may find they love the hobby, and later buy the same sculpt or a different legit doll once they’ve gotten into the hobby.
Others may find the hobby is not for them, and then instead of losing a lot of money, they are out significantly less money when they decide to leave the hobby.
[sta_anchor id=”difference-between-recast-and-legit-abjd” unsan=”Difference Between Recast and Legit ABJD”]They See No Difference Between the Recast and Legit Dolls[/sta_anchor]
My experience was very very positive with my first recast purchase. Your mileage may vary. But some people, such as myself, have an excellent experience. They get excellent service and receive an item that is 99.9999% identical to the real thing while spending about 85% less money.
I was honestly blown away by the quality of the recasts I purchased. They had no odor, they had beautiful normal colored and smooth resin. The larger of the two dolls was quite heavy actually, not light/thin resin like I’d read about some people receiving. It had no bubbles, cracks, debris inside or out of it. It was in flawless condition. The dolls posed and stood up on their own perfectly and were very stable. The faceups were beautiful – much better than I could do myself, and it wasn’t that they were worse than the company’s default faceups, just done in a different style, but that was OK, because people do their own faceups, or send the heads out for faceups by other people all the time, even with legit dolls. There is no reason that a doll has to have a factory default faceup – in fact many people probably prefer something more unique and customized.
Others might have different views and different experiences which lead them to different opinions.
But just as you can’t be swayed away from your belief that recasts are “vastly inferior”, neither can others be swayed from their belief that recasts are “almost as good or nearly the same as the real thing”
We form our opinions and beliefs based on what we see, what we read, what we hear, and on what we experience. And no two people ever experience anything in the exact same way, because each person is different. 2 People could be sharing an experience together, and come away with very different feelings even though they both experienced it at the exact same time. Like my best friend would love to go ziplining in the jungle, while I would be terrified. I love wooden roller coasters and my boyfriend is terrified of those. I love swimming and until a few months ago my boyfriend had never even been in a pool. Like I said no two people are the same!
So two people might get two very similar quality dolls but have very different perceptions about how they’d grade that quality.
Everything in life is subjective – dolls are no different
Also as mentioned elsewhere throughout this article, there is no difference (for many people) morally speaking in owning a recast doll compared to a number of other activities that the overwhelmingly vast majority of the North American population engages in daily. Such as but not limited to:
Downloading an “illegal” mp3
Watching a movie streaming online instead of going to the theater or instead of purchasing the DVD or instead of paying for a digital download/stream or instead of paying a cable provider
Logging into their friends’ netflix accounts
Signing up for a free trial just to access an item for free and then cancelling the trial once you are done with that 1 item
Creating multiple free trial accounts to avoid ever paying for a subscription
Using your student discount when you’re no longer a student
Using a friends’ Amazon prime
Using a friends’ costco or sams’ club memberships
Buying knock-off fashion items such as replicas of coach bags, replicas of designer jeans, replicas of designer sunglasses, etc.
Purchasing other anime/asian related items from Chinese websites or in Chinatown etc. Most all of these are counterfeit, just like the recast dolls. Also if you subscribe to monthly subscription boxes, the vast majority of those include counterfeit items too.
Even in the doll hobby, there is not this kind of hatred for other “recast” dolls such as Blythe and Pulip. Most Blythe and Pulip online communities welcome users to share their “Fakies” and “Off brand” dolls. My little pony is another big one where recast ponies are encouraged to be used and even sold as artist creation dolls and even welcomed at events and conventions.
If you’re purchasing dolls wigs on ebay, taobao, or aliexpress, you’re purchasing from recasters, even if you’re not purchasing a recast, they’re using your money to continue to buy new legit dolls to add to their collection of molds to recast new dolls. Many people in the community are vehemently anti-recast, but yet continue to shop here for doll accessories, wigs, clothing, etc. Which is just funny and hypocritical really.
[sta_anchor id=”recast-doll-gifts” unsan=”Recast Doll Gifts”]The Recast May Have Been Gifted to Them By Someone Not Familiar with the Hobby[/sta_anchor]
Family members, especially parents, grandparents, or male family members may not even realize that they are buying a recast.
Even if they know it is a recast, they may not view anything wrong with this because they are not active in the community to have heard all of the reasons why buying a recast is wrong.
Even if they know that buying a recast is wrong, they might still want to surprise their loved one with a doll for a special occasion out of love and desire to see that person’s happy expression when they receive their gift.
The doll, recast, or legit, would have such strong special sentimental attachment that the recipient of the gift wouldn’t care if it was recast or legit.
However, that recipient may feel bullied into behaving rudely towards the person who gave her the gift
Also the bullying may overtime cause the recipients feelings about the doll to change
Many people will lecture and bully the recipient until she feels ashamed of her doll and forgets the thought and love that went into selecting the gift for her.
Some even tell her to give the doll back, or worse yet, throw it away, trash it, burn it, junk it, etc.
This is extremely rude! Think how you would feel if you gave a gift to someone and they gave it back to you, or you later discovered they intentionally damaged, lost, gave away, etc the doll.
Yes, technically when you give a gift, it’s up to that person, it’s theirs now, if they want to get rid of it, that’s their decision… but if the ONLY reason you’re getting rid of it is because of the bullying, please don’t do that. Just “F” them and continue enjoying your doll. Their behavior is so heartbreakingly cruel. And your behavior towards the person who gave you the doll would be just as cruel too!
If you love the person who gave you the doll, and you love(d) the doll, then just continue to keep loving them and enjoying your hobby. Haters gonna hate. Just do your own thing.
There are bigger things in the world to worry about. Stick together with your family, friends, significant others, etc, and let their special gift to you make you grow closer, not more distant. Don’t be a dick, don’t let a doll come between you and your loved ones!
[sta_anchor id=”market-apathy” unsan=”Market Apathy”]They don’t care about the 2nd hand market and don’t want to resell their dolls[/sta_anchor]
Not only do they not care about your banana babies losing market value, they also don’t care if their own dolls have any market values, because they never intend to resell their dolls.
[sta_anchor id=”community-apathy” unsan=”community apathy”]They don’t care about sharing photos of their dolls or participating in many of the larger communities[/sta_anchor]
Although unlikely, there are some people that just don’t share their dolls online or attend meetups or any other activities.
Some people are just too busy with other hobbies
Others, even if they had legit dolls, wish for whatever reason to keep their hobby private.
Afterall, dolls are perceived as being childish, and many worry what non-dolly friends, family members, and coworkers would think of their “strange” hobby.
Even if they don’t care what others think, some people are just more quiet and passive and private than others and just wish to enjoy their hobby in solitude.
Even if unable to participate in the larger communities, many smaller communities have opened up over the past few years that allow you to share and discuss recasts. These communities continue to grow more and more each day.
You can create your own blog, or use your own social media pages to share your recast dolls, no one can tell you what to do on your own space.
[sta_anchor id=”artist-apathy” unsan=”artist apathy”]They don’t care about supporting the artists or companies that make the dolls.[/sta_anchor]
We should all care about supporting the artists and companies who make our dolls, because without them, there will be no dolls, recast, legit, or otherwise, but the truth is, not everyone does care. And you can’t force them to care. People care about different things. While LOGICALLY it makes sense why we should ALL care, as pointed out, no profit = companies closing = no new legit dolls = no new recasts. It impacts every single person in this hobby. And we all SHOULD care, absolutely. We SHOULD…. but I’m just pointing out that some people STRAIGHT UP DO NOT CARE ABOUT SUPPORTING THE ARTISTS OR COMPANIES — despite all of the reasons why everyone should care, not everyone does. Just like everyone should care about a number of other important topics, global warming, recycling, women’s rights, equality, voting every election, saving for retirement, ending world hunger, helping the homeless, spaying and neutering your pets, or taking care of themselves/physical fitness – but you can probably think of some people in your life, or maybe even yourself who just don’t care, and never will. Everyone cares about different things and nothing will change that.
[sta_anchor id=”drama-apathy” unsan=”drama apathy”]They don’t care about the bullying and drama in the hobby[/sta_anchor]
This is what prevented me from buying recast for at least the past 2-3 years. But you know what? I’m so over it. Bullies are not my friends. They don’t care about me, and they will prove how little they care for me based on their words and actions. I only care about the important people in my life. And those important people don’t get an F if I own a recast doll or not. They know who I am as a person deep down and I don’t need to prove myself or validate myself to a bully.
[sta_anchor id=”moral-apathy” unsan=”moral apathy”]They see nothing morally wrong with owning a recast doll[/sta_anchor]
Lets all go troll and cyberbully someone for owning a pair of fake “Raybans” or a fake “Rolex” because that’s about how much sense it makes to be hateful to someone owning a recast.
There is absolutely no difference.
You might think oh the doll is a work of art. But is not fashion also a work of art?
Or if you want to set dolls apart as a class of their own, is not a Pullip or a Blythe or a My little Pony also a doll? Nendoroids? Figmas? Even barbies and monster high. All of these get recasted daily. Why then are recasts and fakies welcomed with open arms in those hobbies? Encouraged to be used as artist custom works, shared openly, discussed openly, and praised by their respective communities?
What difference is there? Is it price? Materials used? Size of the dolls? How the dolls are used? You can’t say this type of recast is morally wrong, while buying others, and then at the same time supporting, and encouraging recasts of a different type of doll.
So you’re saying there’s a price tag on morals now? Once an item crosses a certain monetary value it becomes immoral to have a recast?
Everyone has different and unique morals and different standards
We come from different backgrounds
Our morals are shaped by how we are raised and what we experience in our life.
Your morals may have taught you that recast dolls are bad, that it’s somehow far worse than a knock off or counterfeit item of any other kind of object or that it’s somehow different from downloading an MP3 or streaming a movie that you did not purchase. You’re stealing from an artist any time you engage in those behaviors.
Your morals may tell you that recast doll owners are the most immoral worst people on Earth and to never associate with them and to “warn” others about them so they don’t accidentally associate with them either. Or you may believe that their entire moral compass is F’ed that they will do nothing but steal, lie, cheat, and take advantage of everyone. That they are greedy, or entitled, or care only about themselves, that they deserve to be bullied and that they are literally the scum of the Earth.
For many of us, we disagree. Many of us realize there are far bigger things to worry about in a person’s character and moral judgement, and that owning a recast doll is no indication of a person’s TRUE character or moral judgement. No more so than downloading an mp3 or carrying an offbrand handbag.
You have to realize you can’t force your morals onto other people. I mean if you could, there would be no crime or violence or hate in the world right? But real life is not always black and white, things are more shades of grey.
I recognize that buying a recast is wrong.
But how I rank that level of wrong is different from how you may rank the level of wrong.
And that’s fine, just as you can’t force your views on me, neither can I force mine on you to get you to see it as a lesser offense.
Many people rank the owning of a recast doll as the worst most wrong thing a person can do.
But to me, I don’t feel like it makes someone instantly a bad person. I give everyone a chance and I have my own set of morals that I judge others on.
We shouldn’t even judge people at all, because you know as they say, people in glass homes shouldn’t cast stones.
But judging people is part of human nature. We do it from our first impressions within 2-3 seconds of meeting someone and we continue to refine and reshape and rethink those impressions with each further interaction we have with that person.
I look at what really counts inside a person (and this is TOTALLY subjective!!! What counts to ME in a good friend might be WAY different to you.) I like the quote that says something like “If you search for friends with no flaws, you’ll be left with no friends”. In other words we all have flaws. But if a person has all the qualities I seek in a good person, and morals that I believe to be ranked as more important than owning a recast doll, then nothing would change my opinion about that person.
But there are other people that will end friendships with otherwise “good people” over a doll…
And that’s fine that’s their choice, but to me, a good friend is hard to find, and a good person even harder to find, so no, their owning a recast does not affect what I think of this friend’s moral judgement. I already know they’re good people (once again this is subjective to your personal beliefs), and owning a recast isn’t going to magically change my perception of that.
[sta_anchor id=”self-entitlement” unsan=”self entitlement”]They Are Selfish and Entitled[/sta_anchor]
This is how you will be viewed if you own a recast doll.
And maybe it is true! I’ve seen some pretty petty / weak arguments for owning a recast doll that seem highly entitled and spoiled and selfish to me.
Like not wanting to wait for the delivery times
Or not wanting to save up enough money
Or making excuses such as age or disability or some other reason they feel justifies their actions
Or just because they “want nice things” (apparently without having to put in the effort to earn those “nice things”) (that’s the very definition of entitlement lol)
People are human, they don’t always have the best motives and reasons behind their actions.
And yes, in the United States especially, many of us are in fact entitled spoiled brats.
Being entitled sometimes is OK.
You’re paying money for a product or a service. You deserve to have the product or service that YOU want. If you want a recast, buy a recast, if you want a legit, buy a legit. Don’t let some faceless random stranger on the internet tell YOU what to do with YOUR money.
That’s right, we’re PAYING MONEY even for recasts. I know that most of you anti-recast people just LOVE to compare buying recasts to shoplifting but it’s not the same thing.
To illustrate my point: That cute dress or cute pair of jeans, that cute handbag, etc, in your closet, is probably a form of art theft too unless its a high-end designer label!
Things like fashion items are cut up and used as patterns
Or some talented seamstresses can create patterns from photos
Especially in Asian countries they send “spies” in snapping photos of different items
Then they “reproduce” those items.
Those items get shipped around the world, to big box retailers, target, walmart, kohls, penny’s, macy’s you name it.
Even more so if you buy items online from Amazon, Ebay, Aliexpress, or various “Wholesalers” with “Unbeatable” prices.
You buy those items.
You’ve just contributed to art theft.
Have you shoplifted? No, you’ve paid the seller for your item.
No difference in if you buy a recast doll. You’ve paid for it just the same. You haven’t shoplifted anything. Just because something has a face, and human or animal like proportions doesn’t make a difference.
Or if you want to claim it does make a difference, what about Phony and Fakie My Little Ponies, Fakie Blythes and Pullips, Polly Pockets, Bratz, Barbies, Monster Highs, etc? In almost every doll hobby, there are recasts, and guess what, there’s not this weird stigma with them. In fact, many are used to create custom artist dolls, those dolls are welcome at conventions, even given away as prizes and/or raffled/auctioned off for charity etc.
The owners of those dolls don’t lose friends, don’t become shunned by their respective communities because no one cares if it’s recast or legit.
These communities don’t cyberbully and harass users, and don’t bring up their personal relationships, life, morals, and any other personal issues – because they just don’t care. They view it as a doll is a doll. No one even questions it or bats an eye at it if someone has a fake doll in any other doll collecting community.
Instead many people are usually curious and show off their recasts or cheap dolls they find in China town, etc.
Some people also seek out or collect these strange offbrand dolls and comment and discuss things openly with the “Fakie” owners and rest of the community coexisting peacefully in one place.
And no one tells them you’re entitled, spoiled, have poor morals, etc.
So be entitled if you want, afterall, you’re a paying customer. A recaster paid for that original doll they’re using to make their molds. The artist and the original company still got paid. And you’re paying the recaster to make a copy of that doll. Everyone is getting paid, you’re not shoplifting anything from anyone.
There is a big difference between shoplifting WHICH IS ILLEGAL in the United States, and Buying a Counterfeit Item (even if you know it’s counterfeit) Because in the USA, buying a counterfeit item for personal use is NOT illegal in the United States. See below under legal issues surrounding copyright or visit this source: https://consumer.findlaw.com/consumer-transactions/buying-counterfeit-goods-laws-and-resources.html
[sta_anchor id=”recast-abjd-risks” unsan=”Recast ABJD Risks”]What Are the Risks in Purchasing or Owning a Recast Asian Balljointed Doll?[/sta_anchor]
[sta_anchor id=”recasts-harm-artists” unsan=”recasts harm artists”]Financial and Mental/Emotional Damage to the Companies and Artists Making the Dolls[/sta_anchor]
As mentioned above in reasons to buy legit dolls, the biggest concern is that overtime, the sales of counterfeit goods cuts into the profits of the doll companies. If these companies go out of business, there’s no new dolls being made, eventually that means no new recasts too, so it is a problem that all doll lovers should feel worried about. Not only is there financial burden, but also emotional distress caused for the companies and artists of legit dolls when they discover their doll has been recast. Imagine how you would feel if someone stole your work of art. It is not a good feeling. Regardless of if you care about the artists’ “feelings” you should want to financially support companies whose work you enjoy to ensure they are around for a long time to continue to manufacture new dolls for all of us.
[sta_anchor id=”abjd-cyberbullying” unsan=”abjd cyberbullying”]Cyberbullying from individuals with strong opinions against owning recast dolls[/sta_anchor]
You can refer to my sections above about why to buy legit dolls – there is a lot of my thoughts put above there about the cyberbullying that goes on in the hobby. This is probably the biggest risk persay in owning a recast doll.
Also not “bullying” but related note that you also should be aware many communities, online and off, and special events, do not allow you to bring your recast doll, talk about recast dolls, share photos of your recast dolls, etc. This is not bullying because it’s up to each person how they wish to run their community and you should respect their rules. There are smaller communities online that are recast friendly, but very few real life events such as conventions or meetups that allow for recast dolls. Not being able to participate in these online and offline communities and events may hinder your enjoyment of your dolls.
[sta_anchor id=”abjd-recast-blacklist” unsan=”ABJD recast blacklist”]You May Be Unable to Purchase Legit Dolls from Legit Manufacturers and Dealers Ever Again in the Future[/sta_anchor]
There is a lot of fear and drama in the recast witch hunting. Part of that fear is that someone will buy a doll and send it to a recaster to use as a mold. So to help stop this, many people will not sell their dolls to you if you are discovered to own a recast. I don’t think anyone actually does this though (sends their dolls to recasters) I don’t know where that fear / rumour started from.
But as a result of that fear, many US based distributors, and original Asian manufacturers will block you from their websites and ban you from ordering their products.
Getting around this is so easy, so don’t let this scare you.
The most common way to get around it is to have a friend or family member hold the package for you. You just enter their shipping address and contact name/number and viola. Then you just either have them send the package to you if they live far away, or you can just go over and pick up your package.
Make sure that you’re only doing this with people you TRUST (preferably people you know in real life) so you don’t get ripped off and someone steals your package.
Another option could be to open a PO box at your post office, but some companies do not ship to PO boxes.
Even if they do an IP address ban on you, fear not, just go to your library or a friend’s house and purchase the doll on their computer.
I’m almost 100% sure that the recasters are obtaining their dolls in similar fashion (having their friends hold the packages for them or sending the packages to another address, using different names, or etc.) I really really really doubt anyone who is just buying dolls for personal use is sending them off to be cloned by the recasters. I sure wouldn’t want to send my dolls off, and risk never getting them back, or getting a recast back, or the dolls getting damaged etc.
[sta_anchor id=”abjd-quality” unsan=”ABJD Quality”]Possible Quality Control Issues and Errors in Communication[/sta_anchor]
This is just straight up copied and pasted from above (under reasons to purchase a legit doll)
Even many anti-recast communities admit that newer recasts have improved in both quality and communication practices and that it is getting more difficult to easily spot a recast based solely on quality alone.
However, just like not all legit doll companies have the same levels of quality assurance, the same goes for different recasters. Some recasters have higher quality and better communication than others.
Even those recasters with higher quality sometimes make mistakes or deliver poor goods, just like even some high quality legit doll manufacturers sometimes make mistakes.
The most common quality issues surrounding recasts include:
Shrinkage; when a recast is made, they use an existing legit doll as a mold. When that mold gets old, new molds are created from the mold of a recast, as time goes on, each mold gets slightly smaller and smaller and the resulting doll therefore gets smaller and smaller too.
As a result of shrinkage and/or the molding process, there is sometimes a loss of detail around fine areas such as the eyes, nose, lips, or ears of the recast doll.
Another issue is often the magnets used to attach fantasy parts or hands/feet are weaker than those supplied by the legit companies.
Sometimes too there will be wrong magnets, where it repells the body part instead of attract, making it impossible to assemble.
Stringing and other issues internally in the doll can result in a doll with inferior posing abilities compared to the legit versions.
Sometimes dolls arrive with two left feet, legs, or other mismatched body parts, this is perhaps the worst flaw of all because it significantly affects pose-ability.
Sometimes dolls arrive broken, damaged, etc in shipping. Sometimes shipments get lost. Sometimes they send you completely the wrong dolls or wrong parts.
When this happens sometimes you’re left with poor customer service (or no response at all) and lose your money and receive damaged goods or no goods at all.
Even legit doll companies can have issues with quality control or communication; however, the problems seem more common with the recast companies. Some people get perfect dolls and perfect, prompt, friendly polite customer service even from recasters. It just depends. It seems most legit doll companies have a better more consistent record at providing better quality products and customer service.
[sta_anchor id=”toxic-resin” unsan=”toxic resin”]Possible Health Concerns[/sta_anchor]
The recaster I purchased from claims to have used French imported resin, but the truth is, who knows what material is really in the dolls. Not only that, but China is infamous for using harmful leads in their paints. There have been numerous recalls the past few years of clothing, shoes, toys, dolls, and even baby items for having toxic levels of lead in the paint they use. Many people who came into contact with these recalled items broke out in scary horrible rashes and hives where their skin came into contact with the objects. Most infamously, there were flipflops sold at walmart that had unsafe levels of lead and were giving people lead poisoning.
I have heard horror stories about recast dolls being “rough” or having “filling” mixed in the with resin, such as sawdust and other particles.
My 2 dolls seem OK, but still who knows. My dolls are smooth and feel just like my legit dolls but are they really made from the same materials? There’s no way to know for sure.
I’ve read reviews, even from the place where I purchased my recast dolls, that indicated the dolls had a strong chemical odor.
This was not the case with my 2 dolls. They have absolutely no odor at all.
I was pleasantly surprised, because I’ve ordered other items (not doll related) from Chinese sellers before, as well as my stepdad working and living in China for several years in my teens, and I remember the packages he sent me, they almost always had a very strong odor. I think it may be caused by all of the air pollution over there. The air pollution is one of the worst in the world there. And obviously air is all around everything, clothes, dolls, the boxes the dolls are shipped in, whatever.
My 2 dolls honestly have no odor at all though, I’m very familiar with that “China smell” and they just don’t have it, or any smell at all. I even held the dolls up to my nose and sniffed them right under my nose, and nothing lol. Where as with many things from China, the moment you open the package, you can smell a very strong odor. But in this particular case, mine were 100% odor free. We’ll see if that trend continues next month when I purchase my next recast doll from the same recaster.
Regardless, this strong chemical odor that many others report could be cause for concern. It could be caused by actual chemicals mixed into the resin, or as I mentioned and suspect, caused by air pollution and who knows what effect the residue from that air pollution could have on one’s health.
The dolls themselves are not protected by copyright, however, their trademarked names, symbols, company brand names, and other such things are protected by copyright (which is why many recast dolls do not have headplates or certificates of authenticity)
There are laws in many countries, including the United States, regarding the traffiking of counterfeit items
The grey area is if you sell a doll that is a recast, even if selling to another for “personal use” at that moment you go from buying it for your personal use, to selling a counterfeit item and may face legal problems. I see a lot of people selling and trading used recast dolls – there’s even communities set up to do just this, but the bottom line is that you are risking legal complications once you sell or trade your recast dolls.
If you never sell or trade your recast doll, there’s no legal problems to worry about. Laws are always changing though, but for now, the US government has ruled that it is not illegal to buy a knock off or counterfeit item for personal use, whether or not you know it’s a recast or not at time of purchase.
The other thing to remember is that only brand names and brand symbols are trademarked, the dolls themselves are not – at least in the US Government’s eyes of what is covered by a trademark. So if your doll comes without any kind of brand mark, etc, it is not protected by any sort of copyright. (This is kinda messed up and I disagree with this law, but I don’t make the laws, that’s just how things are.) The source is the same source as above for further reading).
So the bottom line is you are doing nothing wrong legally – morally may be a different story, but legally as long as it’s for personal use, in the eyes of the US Government, you have done nothing wrong. Please also note as I mentioned laws change so you need to do your own research on this matter as this article ages and you happen to read this. Also please note I only refer to US law here. You need to look into the laws about counterfeit items in your own country to make sure it’s safe to purchase these items for personal use.
[sta_anchor id=”abjd-communities” unsan=”ABJD Communities”]Unable to participate in certain doll-related communities, both online and off[/sta_anchor]
Not all online communities care if you own or share photos/information about your recast doll
But the vast majority, especially of larger communities, do care, and will ban you.
Most of the communities do not care if you actually “own” a doll, as long as you do not post any photos or information about that doll within their community. However, there have been stories of members being banned for posting their recast dolls elsewhere and moderators of these communities discovering the dolls and banning the members.
If you care at all about being part of the community, it is in your best interest to not own or share your recast dolls anywhere online
Fear of this sort of behavior is also tied into the cyber bullying issues mentioned above.
[sta_anchor id=”experience-bullying-recast-abjd” unsan=”Experience Bullying Recast ABJD”]What Has Your Personal Experience Been Thus Far With Bullying As a Result of Owning a Recast?[/sta_anchor]
I’ve only had my recast dolls for about 2 weeks now (It’s taken me about a week to create this post so that’s why there is the time difference from beginning of this article). I have not experienced any bullying. There’s only about 10 “doll people” who know I have recasts right now. Of those, 2 have been supportive/friendly, while the others have not said anything at all about the dolls, but still remain my friends and have not bullied or harassed me. I suspect that to change once I hit the publish button here on this blog post. I have heard of people getting hundreds of harassing comments a day, I’ve heard of people getting doxxed (their addresses etc made public), I’ve heard of people getting death threats or being told to kill themselves. I’ve heard all of these things, but no, I have not experienced it yet… and I probably never would experience it if I wasn’t writing such a long-ass blog post about the whole thing.read more
Tokyo Otaku Mode just announced a week long sale for all in-stock anime figures and free gift wrapping. Now’s the perfect time to buy some new figures to add to your collection, or buy something for that special otaku in your life.
Here are some of the ones I would love to pick up in the sale including Figma’s Nendoroids, and scale figures from anime and videogames such as Card Captor Sakura, Zelda, Vocaloids, Anohana, Love Live, Animal Crossing, Hello Kitty, and more. Check the sale for these and hundreds of other beautiful and cute anime figures! Sale ends November 13th or while supplies last in-stock.
Edit to add: (cleaned up images by moving them to a floating div, making this easier to read. also nixed the old banner ads as we use a different platform now.) I also want to add that Kitty Blue in the Ohio ABJD meetup group helped me restring and hot-glue “suede” this doll a year or two ago which helped a lot of the problems I mention in this review. She also told me buying shoes, especially boots that go up the legs, would help add more stability.
I own a dollmore model F Melissa Baul. She is from 2011, so there may be some small changes to new versions. My version has a custom face up that I ordered through Dollmore themselves. The default faceup is quite different. She came free with the same dark short wig and grey colored acrylic eyes as her stock photo. Her red lace lingerie was also included. They also sent some free gifts, a purple plaid trench coat, and a pin or button featuring the face of one of their dolls.
They did an amazing job on her faceup. I took her to a dollmeet one time and got a lot of very positive feedback on her face. I had sent them random pics off the internet, one for the eyes, one for the lips, etc demonstrating the color and style that I wanted her to have. I wanted something very dramatic, sexy, glamorous, kinda a film noir feeling to it or vintage pinup girl style. I really love how it turned out. I also requested light freckles, I wish I would have requested a bit darker freckles now, I chose a color from photoshop and screenshot that color swatch, but it just barely barely barely shows up, especially with my subpar camera lol.
She came strung very loosely and I have never restrung her (too afraid to!). If I had one complaint it would be that she is strung too loose and can’t pose – heck she can barely stand up at all. As you can see in this photo she CAN stand… it takes forever to get her to do that though. And standing isn’t exactly something that’s hard for these dolls lol. I’m not even trying to do weird crazy poses – just standing there is a challenge for her! From research I have done (sadly after the fact) this seems to be common for Dollmore. They ship all of their dolls like this, so I would not order from them unless you are prepared to restring your doll.
There are a lot more dollmore dolls that I would like, but until I get brave enough to try restringing for my first time, I would not order from them again.
Other than that one small snaffu, I am extremely pleased with dollmore as a whole. They are probably in my top 5 companies in terms of sculpts and style and faceup quality. Their bodies on their model dolls are so beautiful. If we’re talking aesthetically, they are probably my favorite bodies. Pose-ability wise is another question entirely, and out of the dolls I own, they’d be near the lower end. They are double jointed, can touch their own face, etc, but it’s their ability (or lack thereof) to hold a pose due to the loose stringing that kills it every time.
The one complaint that I have aesthetically is her feet are huge. I don’t know if this is necessary to balance out the weight of her long body (they are among the tallest female dolls on the market at 68cm for the females) but her feet are nearly double the length of my other SD girl. Their busts come in 2 cup sizes. mine has the default bust, they also offer a glamour bust option which is at least double, if not tripple the size of the regular. The glamour bust looks very sexy, but I was afraid that it would make it harder for her to fit into clothes from other manufacturers.
Another odd aesthetic choice is the unusually small head. Some people in the hobby think the dolls have “pinheads” I wouldn’t go that far, I’ve gotten used to my girl’s porportions now and she wears the same size wig as my other SD girl. I think though, given that her body is larger, they could have made the head larger as well. I feel they made the choice so that it could share wigs more easily with their other lines of dolls or wigs from other manufacturers. (which is a good thing!)
Here are her measurements for those curious.
<< body size >>
Eye size : 16mm (Diameter)
Tall : 68cm
Circumference of Head : 22.1cm
Circumference of neck : 8.4cm
Circumference of chest : 26.5cm
Width of shoulders : 11.5cm
Circumference of waist: 18cm
Circumference of hips : 28.5cm
Lenth of “from hips to ankle” : 42.cm
* Lenth of “from knee to ankle” : 18cm
Foot size : 8cm
You may be asking yourself what is a balljoint doll. The best place to learn more is over at http://denofangels.com but the quick and dirty lowdown is as follows. They are artist dolls, typically from asian countries, primarily Japan and South Korea. They come unfinished and are intended to be customized by the buyer. It’s sort of like a model kit in a way, which the buyer paints and displays to their liking. The difference is, that the balljoints within the doll allow her to move and take on a number of poses. They are free standing and range in size anywhere from the size of your thumb to the size of a small human child. They come bald and without eyes and you can easily change their looks by changing their wig and eye colors. It is an expensive hobby. The dolls themselves range from 200 to 1200 dollars, and come usually with no wig or eyes included – though as you can see by this post, some companies do include free wig and eyes.
Some companies will sand seams for free, others charge for it. I am not bothered by the seams, to me they don’t show nor detract from the doll, so I never bother with it. Many people sand their own seams but you have to be careful because breathing in the resin dust can be a health hazard as it is very toxic. To be clear, touching and playing with resin dolls will not jeopardize your health, but if you are grinding it down to a powder form, and you inhale it, that can be deadly, so always wear gloves and facemasks when sanding your dolls.
These precautions are not needed when merely playing with or touching your dolls. Some people like to sand down different parts of their dolls, like reshaping the chin or nose etc to further customize them. It is simple to do, just with fine grit sandpaper. Many people paint their own dolls, but you can have the manufacturer paint them too for an added fee. Some companies, such as dollmore, will paint the face however you like, other companies have 3 or 4 options to pick from, and other companies only have a default option. To illustrate, my doll in this post is marked at $555 dollars on the company’s site. To add in a faceup costs another $65, body blushing is $110 (they will add a light peach color to define muscles and highlights over the body), sanding seams is another $110 dollars. So if you want a blank unfinished doll you’re paying $550, if you want to add all the other features you’re paying over $830 bucks. Then when you start buying clothes, wigs, eyes, props, accessories, etc — it gets crazy expensive. It is not for the faint of heart (or wallet lol). But the tradeoff is that you have a piece of art, if you are an artistic person who wants to sew, make jewelry, or make wigs, or props, I’ve even seen complete dioramas with furniture and fireplaces, well this hobby allows you to do all of that. If you’re a photographer and nature lover, this hobby lets you always have a model to take with you to photograph. Its really a rewarding and fulfilling hobby to anyone with a creative itch. It also used to be a good investment as dolls would either hold their market value, or go up in the case of limited dolls, but that is no longer true, most resellers will take at least a 25% loss and sometimes much more depending on the condition of their dolls. Resin yellows with age, no matter how well it is preserved. These dolls are not meant to last forever. That kind of makes them even more beautiful though to me. Beauty fades for all living creatures, why should our dolls be any different. I still have the very first doll that I bought back in 2006, and she is very very yellow now but I would never sell her because there is that emotional attachment. Dolls have a strong personal and emotional sentiment to their owners, moreso, when they are customized by their owners as these are, and unless you are extremely wealthy, these dolls are something that you work very hard to afford and enjoy which in and of itself also brings happiness and fulfillment. And maybe I’m weird, but I actually like the waiting for the doll, both the saving up aspect, and the fact that they take anywhere from 2 weeks to 10 months to manufacture and ship after you pay. Most my dolls have taken about 20 weeks or so to arrive (which is about 5 months!!) But it’s kinda like a kid with the buildup and anticipation of christmas… you know it’s coming, and to me that’s part of the fun. And then that package comes and you open it, and it’s even more beautiful than you had imagined it could be. Another weird quirk in the hobby is that you photograph (or youtube) yourself opening the box when it comes. It’s called unboxing day and many people use this date as their doll’s birthday. Which leads to another way to enjoy the hobby, which is many people have elaborate stories and roleplay or blog about their dolls. I haven’t yet. But I think that’s an amazing idea :). Some people even have doll penpals lol. Perhaps the most universal thing to do with the dolls is to photograph them and share photos and comment on other peoples’ dolls and photos around the net. To that end, I seriously need to get a better camera lol. No matter how you choose to enjoy your doll the unique ability to make something your own and know that no one else has a doll exactly like yours make this a thrilling and exciting hobby.
Geeky Factor:
Sweetie Factor:
Final Verdict:
Range of Motion: 10/10
Ability to Hold a Pose: 2/10
Aesthetics of Sculpt: 8/10
Faceup Quality: 9/10
Delivery & Service: 10/10
Final Verdict: 39/50 78% C+
Note: If it could hold a pose it’d be 47/50 94% or an A.
All she needs is restrung, but that is not my expectation when I buy directly from the manufacturer and pay all that money to have a doll that can’t pose. I’m too afraid to take her all apart given how expensive she was. – If you are not afraid of restringing, by all means, don’t let my “low score” scare you. She is almost flawless aside from that small fact and I truly recommend dollmore whole heartedly in terms of service such as offering custom faceup, delivery time, and including extra gifts and pleasing their customer.
