Bitten by the tiny bug

 

My first BJDs
Fauna, Flora and Minera

It had been three years now that I've started collecting Asian ball-jointed dolls and miniatures. I discovered BJDs back in 2004 and was immediatly attracted to them, despite having little interest in dolls when I was a child. I guess what appealed me about these resin dolls first were the customization possibilities as well as face molds that better suited my tastes compared to other existing dolls. They are a great support for artistic creativity such as painting, sewing, photography, etc. But at that time I was living in an university dorm far away from home, so I decided it was best to complete my studies before getting into the hobby.

On summer 2007, I was finally ready to bring one of these dolls home. I originally wanted a SD sized doll but then had a change of heart when I started to see companies producing cute tinies. And  when I saw the promotional photos for Elf Cookie, she immediatly recalled a character of mine, Fauna.

BC Elf Cookie - Keeper of the Birds
(Photo courtesy of Bambicrony)

However this character was part of triplet set and I just couldn't bring myself to have her without her siblings... Elf Lotti really looked she could be her sister Flora and Elf Gun seemed a good mold for Minera. These characters were very old characters of mine, which I hadn't really developped so far but still held dear. There weren't elves originally but they could be adapted to various settings and for their BJDs version I've more specifically decided to depict them as the guardian spirits of an enchanted forest.

The dolls were only available for a limited amount of time but fortunately I was able to save enough for both Cookie and Gun before the event ended. Lotti was a free event head. I bought a body a few months after my first order to complete my triplets, though now I've sold all the bodies and hybrided them on LittleFee bodies, as the latter are better engineered.

And then, well... I somehow ended up building a full world (Farandoll) around these three. I've always loved miniatures and this incited me to collect them as well as I enjoy having props for the characters.

Progress so far has been rather slow, as I focused more on learning basis for photography and sewing while gathering the elements I need for the stories. However at this point I think I'm finally done with collecting BJDs and plan to go on with my main project as I finally have all the important characters I needed for it.

There is still a good chunk of work to do before I can actually start bringing all these characters to life but I realized from the beginning it was going to be a long term project anyway and I hoping you will all enjoy it as well. I'll be regularly updating this blog as well (hopefully). Meanwhile feel free to visit my Flicker gallery or my farandolls account on deviantArt for photos.