Ball-jointed Doll
Nichele Seibel
A ball-jointed doll is any doll that is articulated with ball and socket joints. In contemporary usage when referring to modern dolls, and particularly when using the acronyms BJD or ABJD, it usually refers to modern Asian ball-jointed dolls.[2] These are cast in polyurethane synthetic resin, a hard, dense plastic, and the parts strung together with a thick elastic. They are predominantly produced in Japan, South Korea and China. The BJD style has been described as both realistic and influenced by anime.[1][3][4] They commonly range in size from about 60 centimetres (24 in) for the larger dolls, 40 cm (15.5 in) for the mini dolls, and down to 10 cm (4 in) for the very smallest BJDs. BJDs are primarily intended for adult collectors and customizers. They are made to be easy to customize, by painting, changing the eyes and wig, and so forth.
The modern BJD market began with the Volks line of Super Dollfie in 1999. Super Dollfie and Dollfie are registered trademarks but are sometimes erroneously used as generic blanket terms to refer to all Asian BJDs regardless of manufacturer.
Articulated dolls go back to at least 200 BCE, with articulated clay and wooden dolls of ancient Greece and Rome. The modern era of ball-jointed doll history began in Western Europe in the late 19th century. From the late 19th century through the early 20th century, French and German manufacturers made bisque dolls with strung bodies articulated with ball joints made of composition: a mix of pulp, sawdust, glue, and similar materials.[5] These dolls could measure between 15 and 100 cm (6 and 39.5 in) and are now collectible antiques.
During the 1930s, the German artist Hans Bellmer created dolls with ball joints and used them in photography and other surrealistic artwork. Bellmer introduced the idea of artful doll photography, which continues today with Japanese doll artists, as well as BJD hobbyists.[6]
Influenced by Bellmer and the rich Japanese doll tradition, Japanese artists began creating strung ball-jointed art dolls. These are commonly made entirely of bisque and are often very tall, sometimes as tall as 120 cm (47 in). These dolls are purely intended as art, and not for play or even the hobby level of collecting usually associated with dolls. They cost several thousand dollars, up to several hundred thousand dollars for older collectible dolls from famous artists. The art doll community is still active in Japan and artists regularly release artbooks with photographs of their dolls.[6]
The history of commercially produced Asian resin BJDs began in 1999 when the Japanese company Volks created the Super Dollfie line of dolls. The first Super Dollfie were 57 cm tall, strung with elastic, ball-jointed, and made of polyurethane resin; similar to garage kits, which were Volks main product at the time. Super Dollfie were made to be highly customizable and to find a female market for Volks products.[6][7][8] See further: Super Dollfie History.
The earliest Asian BJDs were influenced by the anime aesthetic.[1][4] The early, prominent BJD companies Volks, Cerberus Project[9] with the Delf line, as well as the Japanese artist Gentaro Araki with the U-noa line,[6] all have backgrounds in anime-style resin figure kits.
Modern Asian BJDs are intended for adult collectors and customizers and range in price from US$100 to over US$1000. The more costly BJDs have body elements which are cast in polyurethane resin and held together by thick elastic cords, making them fully articulated and highly poseable.
BJDs tend to follow a distinctly Asian view in their aesthetics, but the designs are diverse and range from highly anime-inspired to hyper-realistic.[1][3][4] LA Weekly said Asian BJDs are "often strangely human looking" while NPR described them as "eerily lifelike."[15][16] Most are anatomically correct[16] and have proportionally large heads, big eyes and comparatively large feet, contrasted with fashion dolls like Barbie, and are capable of standing on their own, without a stand or other support.
BJDs are readily customizable. Wigs and eyes are easy to remove and replace, as well as heads, hands, and feet. A doll may even be a hybrid of parts from different companies. Some BJD owners or customizers even re-shape existing parts by sanding them or applying epoxy putty to them.
There is a sizeable international community dedicated to BJDs. The largest English language BJD internet community, Den of Angels, has over 43,000 members as of February 2016.[17] Enthusiasts have also held offline BJD meetups and organized conventions, like Dollectable in San Francisco, US.[18] In Japan, Dolls Party conventions are organized by Volks, and some enthusiasts meet and take pictures of their dolls at doll-friendly maid cafs.[19]
BJDs owners usually customize the look of their dolls, and they are often named, and sometimes assigned individual characteristics and personality traits. The dolls are often used as subjects of artistic work, such as photography[20] or drawing, which is shared on the internet. Some use their dolls and characters for roleplaying. A small minority makes further emotional investment, going so far as to talk to their dolls as if they were alive.[21]
Some BJDs are collectible; limited editions and skillfully customized dolls can fetch prices much higher than the original in the second hand market, sometimes as much as US $5000.[22] However, the customization and personalization aspects are usually more emphasized in the BJD world. Even collectible limited-edition BJDs are played with and used as props in photoshoots, and even dolls that are no longer in mint condition can command high prices in the second hand market.
Many BJD owners have other interests such as anime, Gothic Lolita and cosplay, and some dress their dolls in related styles.[23] BJDs can often be seen dressed in contemporary and casual youth fashions like punk or goth.[24] Other dolls may display fantasy elements like elf ears, vampire fangs, different types of wings, horns, hooves, and cyborg parts.
Doll manufacturers sometimes base BJDs on characters from anime, manga, other works of fiction, or even historical figures. Some BJD owners similarly customize their dolls to create one-off representations of existing characters or celebrities.
Asian BJDs have been featured in movies and other works. The Korean horror movie Doll Master from 2004[25] and the Taiwanese drama film Spider Lilies from 2007 feature BJDs. The virtual band Mistula is composed of customized BJDs, Super Dollfie and Delf dolls. The main characters in the manga and anime Rozen Maiden are ball-jointed living dolls. The horror novel, manga and anime Another also features BJDs. BJDs are also an important motif in the movie Ghost in the Shell: Innocence where many dolls have "spirits" of some sort, but at the same time are not quite human, with designs based on the art of Hans Bellmer.[26]
The earliest BJDs were all around 60 centimetres (24 in) tall, but as the market expanded they have been produced in many different types and sizes. There are roughly three main size categories for BJDs: full size, mini and tiny. Compare with Super Dollfie models.
Mini size dolls, sometimes referred to as MDD from Mini Dollfie Dream or MSD from the Mini Super Dollfie size range, are about 40 cm (15.5 in) tall. There are two major categories of minis: those that are roughly in the same scale as the 1/3 full-size dolls and meant to look like children, and mature or slim minis which are meant to represent fully grown adults that are in 1/4 scale.
Ball-jointed doll prototypes can be produced in one of two ways. They can be initially modeled in clay, most commonly polymer clay, by hand or, alternatively, they can be digitally designed using digital sculpting tools such as ZBrush, and 3D printed. The hardened clay or 3D printed body parts are used to form molds for multiple parts to be cast in synthetic polyurethane resin. Cured resin has a hard, smooth, porcelain-like feel, but is less brittle. Unlike porcelain however, polyurethane tends to turn yellow and decay over time depending on exposure to UV light and heat. The resin casting process allows for molds to be produced with a relatively low initial investment, compared to the injection molding commonly used for mass produced vinyl dolls. However, the materials are more expensive, and the process requires more manual labor, resulting in a higher cost per unit.
Most regular edition BJDs come assembled with an option for a "face-up", the facial blushing and painting, while full set BJDs, which are often limited, include clothes, face-up, and sometimes full body blushing. A few BJDs are sold as bare unassembled parts in a kit, similar to a garage kit.
BJDs are produced by anything from single-person outfits on a hobby level, to incorporated multinationals. Hobby artists in Asia, particularly Japan, and the West, particularly USA and Australia, create and sell their own dolls. In Asia there is a wide variety of companies making BJDs, most based in South Korea. The BJD Orbyrarium book lists 49 different BJD companies[28] and one fan-run BJD database includes 125 companies as of February 2009.[29] As of March 2018, there are over 600 different BJD companies and independent artists worldwide.[30] A few of the most notable BJD lines and companies can be found below.
On occasion, unauthorized copies or recasts of original dolls are sold, predominantly in South-East Asia. Several Korean and Japanese BJD companies have posted notices warning against recast dolls.[31][32][33][34]There is a strong resistance against these knockoff dolls within the BJD community. They are for example not allowed to be posted on the largest English BJD forum.[35]
Super Dollfie[22][28] from Volks was the first line of modern Asian BJD. They set the range of sizes used by most companies. Volks have released a vast variety of different dolls, most of them limited editions, some in collaboration with fashion designers like Baby, The Stars Shine Bright and H. Naoto or anime series like Rozen Maiden. Volks has a number of stores in Japan and Korea, as well as one in Los Angeles.[36] They also run the Super Dollfie museum, Tenshi-no-Sato in Kyoto, Japan. In 2004, Time magazine described Super Dollfie as having "trendily refined makeup" and "exaggerated features inspired by Japanese animation".[1] Shojo Beat, in 2008, said they have "cool glassy expressions", "a distinct anime look" and that their styles "stay true to a Japanese aesthetic."[4]
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