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Geekisthecolour In reply to TayMcKayPhotography [2011-09-24 10:25:24 +0000 UTC]

Thank you so much for the feature <3

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Geekisthecolour In reply to BeastGuyver [2011-09-04 12:18:33 +0000 UTC]

I'd really suggest checking out the debate and discussion sections on Den of Angels since the topic has been discussed at length on both and that might provide more insight than I can provide on the subject.

Just as a quick overview though; The material used, a kind of polyurethane resin is expensive and temperamental for one. It only takes too much humidity (which is a very real problem in Korea, Japan and China where they're made at certain times of year) or a temperature change to ruin pieces during the casting process. I recall seeing one artist once say that when they're using tinted resin (for tan dolls etc) they have to throw away ten miscast pieces for every perfect piece they get out of a mold which is extremely time consuming and expensive purely on the man hour side of things.
The dolls are also made to order, by hand, by generally very small companies of sometimes just 2 or 3 artists (Volks and Soom are probably the main exceptions to this size wise but I still don't think they exactly have production lines set up on the scale of say, Barbie). Many of the dolls, especially the higher end ones also have a level of detail to them that wouldn't lend themselves to mass production, especially when you consider the molds they use only last 100 or so casts and cost a lot to replace. All of those things have to be factored in for the company to make a profit.

A lot would have to change about the dolls to make them viable for mass production, including the material used. Which would frankly put a lot of BJD owners off. That and most of us love the fact that they're hand made and hand painted (which in itself is a time consuming process) by artists.
All that said though, there's really no impetus for doll companies to really need to consider mass production, they do well enough with their current prices & process and for the most part definitely aren't hurting for business at their current prices, so why change something that's clearly working for them?

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BeastGuyver In reply to Geekisthecolour [2011-09-05 02:55:12 +0000 UTC]

OK thank you. I once saw a life size doll sculpted to look exactly like its owner I'm guessing that one cost a fortune.

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