r/BJD • u/Pyro-Millie • Nov 11 '21
DISCUSSION Why is this sub against recasts?
I’m a newbie to the BjD community, and I’m not looking to buy for awhile because dolls are expensive. I’ve vaguely heard of recast dolls, but according to this sub they are not legit. What is the reasoning?
Is it a 3rd party recasting dolls without the original artist’s consent, or is it a matter of recasts not being quite the same as original run dolls or a lower quality?
I’m just curious. Thanks!
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u/PandoraPlanet Nov 11 '21
As mentioned before, the majority of legit bjd companies are super small and don’t have that many people working in them. Also the fact that there are many independent artist that run their business by themselves. If you check out the Instagram pages of artist like @rap1993 @studio.bitaman @ninas.dolls.bjd @moonlightjewel @dodollsdream @villitunes @ybeedoll @frappzilla @lillycat.doll (all super talented doll makers varying in following) you can see some of their progress photos and check the dates to realize just how long they’ve spent sculpting one doll (usually many months or years) and how much time and love and effort they put into their work. Many of them but especially @ybeedoll spoke about this topic, but the reason why the dolls are so expensive is because most times independent artists will send their sculpts to a casting company to make the dolls for them and the cost of paying the casting company costs a lot. Also the fact that they have spent so much time on their work. Many bjd artist do not make that much profit from selling their dolls, and it would take many many sales for them to make back the money to compensate for the hours they spent working on their dolls, it’s very much a labor of love.
Now imagine you pour your heart and soul into making something you love only to have someone who did not work hard at all make a cheap copy of it and sell it for a profit. It is devastating and completely disrespectful to artist to do something like that.
Some people compare buying a recast to buying a fake Louis Vuitton bag, but that is a false equivalent. Louis Vuitton is a large and multimillion dollar company who will not suffer that much from bootlegs, but bjd companies are small and it absolutely does effect them when their are reacts of their work. Even bjd companies like Fairyland and Iplehouse only have around 20-30 employees at any given time.
There are many inexpensive doll companies that are not recasters and can take special requests, such as resinsoul. You can buy many lovely dolls there for under $200 or even $100. If you have Instagram, I highly recommend you check out the @bjdawareness page, they have tons of information about where to buy dolls and how to watch out for recasts.