The "Art" of Candid Photography...... <(^_~)>

[These are older photos, that I took back when I only had two Makies, Lochs and Ryuu. Since I never got around to posting them in the old forum, I thought I'd post them here.]

One evening some of the boys were hanging out on my bed. Lucifer and Ryuu discovered that they both share a love of fashion, so they were looking through Lue's latest fashion magazine from Japan, along with Napasha, Lue's personal bodyguard and butler. (Napasha is the Russian Blue cat boy.)

Little Miguel, who can't quite decide if he's feline, vulpine, or canine, was also looking. ( Lol, he's the little brown fellow with the big ears, who looks a bit like Michael Jackson.)

Napasha and Miguel can't read Japanese, but they like to look at the pictures. ^_~

Lochs, who isn't into fashion, was standing in the back having a conversation with Leaven, who was babysitting little Max.
(Little Max is the little chocolate poodle boy sitting in Leaven's lap. He is an Anthropomorphic version of my real miniature chocolate poodle Max, when he was a puppy.)

Lochs and Leaven are older than the others, they are both around college age. ^_^

It was such a nice little scene, that I just couldn't resist snapping a candid shot! ^_~


Lol, and then, the after shot.

Wow, it looks like they all get along really well! What a happy group. There are so many dolls in this picture that I never even knew about.

With the exception of Lochs and Ryuu, they are all resin ABJDs, Asian Ball Jointed Dolls. Of course, technically Ryuu and Lochs could be considered BJDs too, since they also have joints that consist of a ball and a socket. ^_~

Lue and Leaven are both from the Volks company, in Japan. Volks is the one who started it all.

Lucifer, or Lue, is one of the early, more stylized Volks head sculpts, his sculpt name is Kohaku for the boys and Hisui for the girls. Hisui is the Japanese word for jade, and Kohaku is the word for Amber. Sadly, Volks has since discontinued this head sculpt, along with the rest of their early, more stylized head sculpts, in favor of what, is for them. more realistic looking head sculpts. Even though I could pretty much guess it was coming, I was still utterly devastated when they finally completely discontinued the Kohaku/Hisui head sculpt. I was sort of hoping they might still keep it as an FCS choice. This happens to be my absolute favorite head sculpt, I currently have over thirty dolls with this sculpt alone. Lue is very special, not only was he my first Kohaku, but he was also one of my very first BJDs! ^_^

Leaven is special too, he is one of the floor models from the Volks USA store. When they closed their only Volks store in the USA, rather than shipping all the dolls that were used as models in the store back to Japan, Volks decided to put them up for adoption through a lottery at their special Farewell closing event. After the event, their were a few dolls left that hadn't been adopted, so Volks put them up for adoption in a special online lottery. Leaven was one of them, and since I wasn't able to attend the closing event, I decided to try for him. I pretty much figured I didn't stand a snowball's chance of winning him, but I tried for him anyway. ......and I won!

Napasha is a Catish doll, who was purchased from a Korean company called Dollmore. An independent doll artist or small company makes the heads and Dollmore supplies the bodies from their 1/4 size Kid Dollmore line. Even though I'm not really a cat person, there are certain breeds which I really like. Russian Blues are one of them. ^_^ So, when I saw that not only had Catish released a Russian Blue, but that they had released a boy Russian Blue, it was fate! I just knew I had to get him. I think he might be the only boy that Catish has released, so far anyway.

Miguel and little Max are both from a Korean company called Luts. My second favorite BJD company, and my favorite Korean BJD company. I love their sculpts! Little Max is from Luts's line of tiny Anthropomorphic BJDs that are called Zuzu Delfs. I'd been wanting to get one of the little poodles ever since I first saw them, I just needed an excuse. When I saw that they were now available in Luts's dark tan, and that it was the perfect color to make a little Anthro version of my real Chocolate poodle boy, I had my excuse! ^_~ Now, if only Luts would offer him in a nice dark grey or even a black option..... I'd have one for every one of my little poodle kids. ^_^

Last year, I believe, Luts released two of their Zuzu Delf sculpts as Kid Delfs. They were Zuzu Delf Leo and Cornellia. Miguel is a Kid Delf Cornellia, who apparently is supposed to be a cat. Lol, he even came with this long, slender, detachable cat tail, which I promptly wrapped up in miles of bubble wrap and packed away someplace safe, for fear of accidently snapping it in two by just breathing on it!

Besides, it doesn't really suit him, as in person, he really doesn't look all that much like a cat. Not to me at least, I think he looks more like a Chihuahua. Hence the name Miguel. ^_~ Which is also a bit of a play on his passing resemblance to young, much cuter looking, Michael Jackson.

It was those incredibly beautiful huge eyes that got me, in that adorable little Anthro face! I absolutely love his eyes! ^_^
However, I had no use what so ever for the Romantic version girl's body he was supposed to come with. Romantic version means developed, if you get what I mean. ^_~
Fortunately Luts gives you the option of ordering the head on a boy's body. ^_^

Awesome a fellow BJD collector  it's nice to see the different dolls interacting. I don't know if they'll be much with mine as they're all from different universes. Managed to figure out the Volks and the Catish doll so at least I'm not so out of touch as to not recognise sculpts  though I thought your brown cat might have been a Dear Mine for a second

It's nice to see some of your BJDs and learn a little bit about them. I'd love to see a photo of the ones that are all the same sculpt as it would be interesting to see how different they can end up looking!

I like that there's a few BJD collectors here on the forum. I'm gently dipping my toe in the water of that particular hobby - my first BJD arrived last week (she's stunning!) and I just love looking at other people's photos and hearing about their collections. 
Maybe we should start a BJD thread in the anything goes section here on the forum?

Sounds good to me. ^_^
I belong to the Den of Angels BJD forum, but it's base has just grown so large, that it doesn't have the close homey feel anymore, it's so big, and feels kind impersonal these days. Plus with all the rules about on topic and off topic dolls, what you can and can't post about, where which topics should be posted, etc. I'm almost afraid to post anything anymore.

It would be really nice to have a warm, welcoming, cosy place to post and chat about our BJDs on here.

Ugh I've always hated DOAs definition of 'on topic' I can understand fashion dolls, but Hujoos just because they're not made of resin?! Madness, no wonder people think there's elitism. I even heard rumours that  some dolls despite by asian companies would be flagged as off topic for a random aesthetic reason, non asian artists dolls would get in because they were friends with the mods 0.0

I've been surprised generally at how much nicer some of the other doll communities have been and I've always thought that the BJD community was a place with good people (until I saw tumblr *cough*). Other boards would be nice though to see peoples other collections as I'm sure we don't only just have Makies do we?

Yes, I can understand that it's a BJD forum, and I understand not wanting to be seen as promoting or encouraging recasts, but I do think they take the whole off topic doll thing to the extreme. To the point where they come off as rather heavy-handed, whether they mean to be or not.

I don't love my BJDs any more than I love my Makies, so why should my Makies be treated like they are second class citizens..... It's like "She/he who must not be named!", really, where is the harm in my saying in a post something like, "Oh yeah, I had that same problem too, when I did a face-up on my New Makie doll, Egglatina." What!? Am I forever cursed because I dared to say "my Makie" instead of saying "off topic doll"?...... Is lightning going to strike me for, horror of horrors, actually mentioning her name, or for that matter, for actually giving an "off topic" doll a name in the first place?...... Because that's how it kind of feels on DoA.

It just smacks of, "Hey! All you off topic dolls get to the back of the bus!" type treatment to me.

In the beginning, when the majority of the Asian BJD's had very stylized anime influenced facial features, and very slender almost androgynous bodies, any doll that was too fashion doll looking, to realistic was considered off topic, then they accepted a couple artist's dolls because they said

Drat! I accidently hit the send button again! >_<

Anyway, they said that those particular Artist's dolls had the Asian doll aesthetic, so they were allowed on the forum. Then other artist's dolls were allowed, that to me at least, did not have that Asian BJD look. However, as far as I know, some artist's BJD dolls like Goodreau's, have never been accepted, not a single one of her dolls.

Now, since the trend is for more realistic dolls, more fashion doll type dolls, and freaky shaped dolls, all of a sudden dolls that were "off topic" like Tonner and Creedy are welcomed with opened arms now. However, I suspect you still won't find any of Goodreau's resin BJDs on DoA.

So it all comes across as rather arbitrary, a matter of personal taste, and more a case of if the people making the decisions like a doll Artist, or if they like a particular doll, then that doll, or that Artist's dolls is now on topic..

Well I know a grail BJD of mine was off topic for quite a while until people must have complained not the company just the one doll and that was 5stardoll 

To me I think there needs to be some organisation so balljointed dolls must require balljoints and that should be the main focus, but aesthetic and materials (like vinyl and ABS) shouldn't come into it. I think there should really be off topic section just so people can cross over if they want to it can be annoying to have to manage being part of several groups, especially if like me you dont get much free time. However I can imagine from an admin/moderator it would be very hard to keep track of especially somewhere as big as DOA. Have you heard of Dollieh Sanctuary that allows all kinds of dolls.

I definitely think that I prefer the smaller communities now like this, not because I want to be a special snowflake part of an elite club, but the amount of drama that seems to go on when a group gets to big it's crazy

I'm not on DoA (although I'd quite like to be so I can check out the market place, anyone fancy sending me a code? :p) but I do see all the confessions about it on Tumblr and it seems like an odd set-up on occasion. As you say, JRyu, some of the definitions seem pretty arbitrary and personal.

Definitely better if we have a thread here to chat about them in a relaxed environment where there are no off topic dolls. I'll go start one in the anything goes section, make sure you come over and join in!

Def guys, almost all of us seem to collect more than just Makies so feel free to discuss them. I think I had a DOA account a looong time ago lol, when I was a student considering a bjd. But I never could justify the obscene expense and ended up spending my money on D&D stuff instead hahaha.

But man, I got no time for snobbery.

I think the only thing I use DOA for now is the marketplace and the customisation threads. Some people do awesome stuff it really gets me inspired.

I will still point noobs there though (if they're able to get in) as it does have a lot of info and could probably answer a lot of questions if they're able to navigate it. It was the only way I learnt any stuff back in the day. I don't think there were any FB groups like there are now but I could be wrong. (Only used FB properly in last couple of years)

I keep wanting to do a big family pic of all the different dolls I own together, but various ones are packed away or I get them all out at different times. If I manage to move I'm defo going to try and make a proper space for them.

See, that's what I want DoA access for, to look at people's pictures! I'm generally a lurker rather than a poster on forums so I find it easy enough to avoid any drama or snobbery - I just read it if it's interesting enough, ignore it if it's not, and never get involved. 

I started a thread in the anything goes section for BJD discussion, come and chat! .

If you want I could send you an invite to join. I think you still need those to join. I think they're supposed to work like a guarantor or something so I think if you get in trouble I think the person who invited you might get penalised to, so you'd have to behave