Boggled - BJD

Every once in a while, I stumble across a new world. Some wholly undiscovered arena of "things people do." This one came about as a result of a friend on facebook commenting on one of their friends pictures - and the accompanying comment on "bjd" and dolls. What the heck?

So, I googled "bjd dolls" and got sucked into a entire world that I didn't even suspect the existence of.

BJD or ABJD stands for Ball-Jointed Doll or Asian Ball-Jointed Doll - as Wikipedia informed me.

From Wikipedia:

... any doll that is articulated with ball and socket joints. In contemporary usage ... modern dolls, particularly modern Asian ball-jointed dolls. These are cast in a hard, dense plastic, and the parts strung together with a thick elastic. Described as both realistic and influenced by anime. They commonly range in size from about 60 centimetres down to 10 cm. BJDs are made to be easy to customize, by painting, changing the eyes and wig, and so forth. They are fully poseable, anatomically faithful, if stylized, and can stand on their own.

And, might I add - the eyes are particularly haunting.

And they ain't cheap, folks. $500 - $600 seems common.

Here's a few sites so you can see what I mean. The English is a bit Japanglish on these.

• http://www.dreamofdoll.com/
• http://www.iplehouse.net/
• http://www.dimdoll.com/

So, after discovering that there was an entire world of customized dolls out there, how long would it be before I thought, "Geez - I wonder if there is a specialty jewelry market too."

So, I googled "bjd dolls jewelry" and yep - there's stuff here too.

http://www.minimode.com/BJD/

and on Etsy too. But - I notice - the market isn't flooded there. Only 44 hits (at the time of writing) for "bjd jewelry" on Etsy. So this might be a niche that needs filling? It would be kind of refreshing to make jewelry on a smaller scale - you can be lavish with the crystals and still make it affordable.

So - there you go. Whole new world out there. Go jewel it. ;-)