The Facebook debacle & other issues

1 hour ago, ButtonsMcGee said:

To be fully honest, the main reason I even wanted a smart doll was to make Shura. Resin wasn't cutting it because I wanted specifically anime style for them, and I'm not a huge fan of Volk's DD (of any kind) bodies. (No offense to anyone that loves them~)

It's kinda funny to realize I jumped into a drama pit when it comes to anything about the creator. But I'm probably looking at it much differently than everyone else because I haven't been emotionally involved yet. And I kinda hope to keep it that way. ;w;

I'm just nosy. XD

Ah 😄 if you're looking at getting one because it's a good fit for the character, then go for it! Despite all the drama, I really love my Smart Doll. She's got a look like none of my other dolls!

There are some resin dolls in anime style, but they're hard to find, and sometimes just the odd couple of sculpts in a company that makes more conventional dolls (like Pink Bear and Black Cat from Dollzone). Even just peeking into the iceberg of Alice's Collections, 2D Doll have some anime style sculpts, Aimerai have a manga line... I know there's more out there!

(But I still love my Smart Doll XD )

22 minutes ago, BeyondTime said:

SQ Labs makes anime style resin dolls, and I am pretty sure they sell blank heads.  

They do (koreadolls is currently the best way to get them).

18 minutes ago, Katsudon said:

Ah 😄 if you're looking at getting one because it's a good fit for the character, then go for it! Despite all the drama, I really love my Smart Doll. She's got a look like none of my other dolls!

There are some resin dolls in anime style, but they're hard to find, and sometimes just the odd couple of sculpts in a company that makes more conventional dolls (like Pink Bear and Black Cat from Dollzone). Even just peeking into the iceberg of Alice's Collections, 2D Doll have some anime style sculpts, Aimerai have a manga line... I know there's more out there!

(But I still love my Smart Doll XD )

Yeah, I know they technically exist, but because Shura's a character I've had for a reeeeaaaally long time, I'm very picky. As it is, I'm still a little sad that I've temporarily settled for the Cinnamon Skin (but I can always possibly find them a new shell later with a Milk Serenity and then keep this doll as another character because I DO like her), but the face was a really big detail for me.

Some of the other anime faces I've seen look... kinda weird to me from any angle other than the front? Again, no offense to anyone that does in fact like them, but they just aren't for me. Smart Dolls on the other hand have a shockingly good sculpt and offered not only a face that looked good from all angles, but actually offered the eye shape I needed. Plus the body being aesthetically pleasing on top of that. 

When it came to me choosing between Volks and SmD's with body types, Volks tend to have more realistic leg-lengths but extra long torsos, while it feels like SmD/s have better balanced torso-length but are far more leggy. I was more willing to have the doll be leggy than have a super long torso.

TL;DR: I'm insanely picky and have a tendency to focus heavily on certain details.

If it was just a doll that I saw and liked just because I liked the doll, then I'd be more open to things. But because I was specifically trying to shell a character, that significantly narrowed my options. XD

But thanks for pointing the other brands out! 😄

7 minutes ago, ButtonsMcGee said:

TL;DR: I'm insanely picky and have a tendency to focus heavily on certain details.

If it was just a doll that I saw and liked just because I liked the doll, then I'd be more open to things. But because I was specifically trying to shell a character, that significantly narrowed my options. XD

But thanks for pointing the other brands out! 😄

Haha it's okay XD I get it. Gotta go with your heart with dolls! At least I do. (I have a similar thing where I want to shell a character... but she's black, and the resin doll company I asked said they don't cast their manga dolls in darker skin tones etc. even though they offer that on their main dolls. So it's gotta be Smart Doll for sure!)

3 minutes ago, Katsudon said:

Haha it's okay XD I get it. Gotta go with your heart with dolls! At least I do. (I have a similar thing where I want to shell a character... but she's black, and the resin doll company I asked said they don't cast their manga dolls in darker skin tones etc. even though they offer that on their main dolls. So it's gotta be Smart Doll for sure!)

Oh man yeah, finding companies that make dolls that are black honestly is pretty tough, especially if you're looking for a particular face/eye shape. As it is, the only two companies that I know of that make dark-skinned dolls that I personally would want to buy in resin are MerryDollRound's Dango and... Orange Tea Doll's Pollet. The Orange Tea Doll is actually one that looks far less realistic though. I like her a lot because she reminds me of an old music video that shows a particular type of doll, and the first time I saw her, it was my friend Josh's doll that he bought from another youtuber friend of his. She was a Baba Yaga character at first, and with him, he's named her Hershey. I basically told him that if he ever decides he wants to sell her, I call dibs. 

They actually did a release of that sculpt of doll, but they didn't offer the skin color I wanted nor did they offer the larger boob-size. ;w; 
In my opinion, the larger head and hip sculpt on that doll are balanced out better with the larger boobs. So I was kinda sad that I couldn't order my own version of her. 

 

Anyway, sorry that went real off-topic for a minute there. XD

I got excited about dolls. 

11 hours ago, ButtonsMcGee said:

Actually, I think in that case it might be a price thing. Technically SmD's are cheaper than Volks dolls, so Danny might be trying to view it as a "courtesy" to give you the face-up for "no extra charge" or something like that.

Totally an assumption here, but that might be the case. lol

He might think he's doing people a favor by making the face-ups automatic. 

As for not keeping the blank heads in stock, isn't it true that Danny absolutely HATES when people do hybrids? It's like how he emailed me when I ordered a hand-pack for my girl that I had gotten second-hand. "Do you have a doll? These will ONLY fit Smart Dolls." He's being stupidly protective of his stuff and isn't selling blank heads because he doesn't want people sticking them on DD or MDD bodies, I'm guessing. 

Okay, I'm legitimately curious to see if anyone around here knows. My roommie and I have been doing some digging to try and uncover the mystery of Danny's hatred for Volks, and seem to have found something about him originally planning on doing a collaboration with Volks in 2013 to release Mirai. Obviously that never happened. Does anyone know the background to this? What happened? What was the deal breaker? What made Danny SO jaded that he just wont let it go?

DD blank heads - 4,180yen each

Smartdoll:

Chaos vinyl blank heads - 7,900yen for 2 heads, without headcaps

Chaos headcaps - 2,900 each

Hence a Chaos blank head with headcap is approximately 5,400yen. Note that Chaos stuff is outlet quality stuff, which can come with uncut eyeholes, and not normal quality. Also the headcaps are BRIGHT ORANGE. Also, you don't get to choose the head, not even the skintone.

Chaos vinyl painted heads - 14,900yen each, without headcaps

Hence a Chaos painted head with headcap is approximately 17,800yen each. Again, outlet quality, BRIGHT ORANGE headcap. Also again, no choice of head except for skintone.

Maybe he's charging for the wabisabi-ness of uncut eyeholes and bright orange headcaps?

As for the Volks hate, he approached Volks to make Mirai as a DD and was rejected, and he's been bitter about it ever since. I wasn't in the vinyl side of the hobby back then, but according to other hobbyists in my country, part of the reason why Volks ended their working relationship with him was because of the ruthless way he operated. He even had a hate club here, which was serious enough that owners ended friendships over it. This is all hearsay though, so take it with a pinch of salt ^-^

His bitterness and hate seems to have increased exponentially over the past couple of years though. I personally feel that Volks getting the Nier Automata license didn't help, as I remember he posted a teaser before that so I'm guessing he was hoping to get the license. That was also around the time of the mistranslated tweet.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. I don't know why he's so bitter over Mirai as a rejected DD since he started his own company after that and has a line of his own gorgeous dolls that so many people love.

Edited September 12, 2020 by bbotss

1 hour ago, bbotss said:

I wasn't in the vinyl side of the hobby back then, but according to other hobbyists in my country, part of the reason why Volks ended their working relationship with him was because of the ruthless way he operated. He even had a hate club here, which was serious enough that owners ended friendships over it. This is all hearsay though, so take it with a pinch of salt ^-^

If that’s true, then it’s pretty bad, but at the same time I’d caution that most of the rumors we hear about anything are likely unfounded. That said, ruthless does seem to fit how CJ customer service policy treats anyone with a complaint.

Having met the folks at Volks, they do seem like the sort who wouldn’t deal with someone who wasn’t honorable. The entire staff seemed very polite and concerned with the well being of their guests; that says something to me about how their company operates. I know a big part of that is probably Japanese courtesy, but by contrast those Instagram posts Danny makes are, to say the least, lacking in decorum, and that says something too. 

11 hours ago, BeyondTime said:

12 hours ago, ButtonsMcGee said:

Does anyone know the background to this?

Only what I have read here: He wanted Volks to make Mirai into a doll and they said no. He’s hated them ever since. 

At the time I don't remember that being the case at all. Ok I went digging using the Wayback Machine and randomly landed in 2015 finding this:

Quote

I was so happy that I got to meet the Managing Director at Volks last year!

From what I remember, he started going off the rails when Volks got the Nier Automata even though he'd been showing prototypes of 2B using Chitose. TBH I wouldn't be surprised if he approached Square Enix first and SE was like, uh, let's go with Volks. If anyone feels like digging more into that, the time of Volks' Nier announcement was in May 2017.

1 hour ago, bbotss said:

DD blank heads - 4,180yen each

Smartdoll:

Chaos vinyl blank heads - 7,900yen for 2 heads, without headcaps

Chaos headcaps - 2,900 each

Hence a Chaos blank head with headcap is approximately 5,400yen. Note that Chaos stuff is outlet quality stuff, which can come with uncut eyeholes, and not normal quality. Also the headcaps are BRIGHT ORANGE. Also, you don't get to choose the head, not even the skintone.

Chaos vinyl painted heads - 14,900yen each, without headcaps

Hence a Chaos painted head with headcap is approximately 17,800yen each. Again, outlet quality, BRIGHT ORANGE headcap. Also again, no choice of head except for skintone.

Maybe he's charging for the wabisabi-ness of uncut eyeholes and bright orange headcaps?

I wasn't really talking the Chaos stuff. Everyone seems to be focusing just on the blank heads. I was talking the full prices of things in general. To which, when compared fully I was admittedly wrong about them being cheaper on all accounts, as someone else pointed out. 

The cheapest "standard" model of a Dollfie Dream is $462 according to the Volks USA website. But that's only a single doll. They range anywhere between $462-$526 depending on which mode you want. Those dolls come with a wig, eyes, and a nightgown. 6 out of the 10 dolls are under $500, if those are the body types you prefer. 

Smart Dolls cost roughly $490 after the conversion from Yen to USD. Those dolls come with a wig, eyes, and an underwear set. 

So really it all boils down to which dolls you prefer and how much it costs to do what you want to do with said doll. Some people prefer building the doll themselves, in which case Volks might be the better option because of the better prices on the singular parts, like being able to buy the heads for about $40. But for some people getting the doll already fully put together is the better option and if they prefer a certain body type, then the Smart Doll winds up cheaper than the more expensive Dollfies.

 

It's all a matter of what someone's looking for.

3 minutes ago, foo said:

Ok I went digging using the Wayback Machine and randomly landed in 2015 finding this:

That’s the post I remembered where he talked about discovering the costs of making his own doll. 

That post doesn’t necessarily rule out Mirai getting rejected by Volks, but as I said before it’s a story I have only heard from people on this forum. I have no idea the original source. 

Somewhere out there is a picture of Danny with a DD and the management at Volks outside of one of their factories. It’s captioned something along the lines of meeting the family and what nice people they are. 
 

8 minutes ago, ButtonsMcGee said:

then the Smart Doll winds up cheaper than the more expensive Dollfies.

The expensive Dollfie Dreams are in the $1,000 dollar range, so SmD doesn’t come close to what a DD can cost, unless you count that “prototype garage“ thing he does.

I honestly don’t think that the price between SMD and DD is so great that it plays a larger role in decision making than aesthetics. I mean, if you like Towa more than Mirai you’re probably not going to buy Mirai instead just to save $36.

2 minutes ago, BeyondTime said:

That post doesn’t necessarily rule out Mirai getting rejected by Volks, but as I said before it’s a story I have only heard from people on this forum. I have no idea the original source.

It's not just a story out there, it's a well known event 😋 It shouldn't be hard to find it via the wayback machine. He had figmas and Nendoroids made of Mirai, but when he approached Volks they said she wasn't popular enough to make into a doll. He wasn't bitter about it, it just meant that Volks wasn't going to make it. After an April Fool's joke he ended up actually getting started making a robotic smart doll. When they started selling he was surprised that the non-robotic version had so much demand (I'm guessing you should be able to find that on the original smart doll pages a couple months after first release).

11 minutes ago, foo said:

It's not just a story out there, it's a well known event

Ok, but I’ve only heard it here, so I feel a bit obligated to make sure people know that what I’ve heard is second hand. 

Just checking the dates of the forum, the tweets about Volks Dolpa being exclusive to Volks dolls were well after the Nier announcement. If anything predates that I haven’t heard anything about it. 

50 minutes ago, BeyondTime said:

Just checking the dates of the forum, the tweets about Volks Dolpa being exclusive to Volks dolls were well after the Nier announcement.

That was the summer after right? 🤔 At that point the rails are cleanly off to the side.

2 hours ago, BeyondTime said:

Having met the folks at Volks, they do seem like the sort who wouldn’t deal with someone who wasn’t honorable. The entire staff seemed very polite and concerned with the well being of their guests; that says something to me about how their company operates. I know a big part of that is probably Japanese courtesy--

And as we all know, Danny has several paragraphs about how treating customers well would put his staffs well-being on the line... 🙄

 

18 hours ago, Serena-Hime said:

It might be different in the resin and vinyl doll genre, but it's very common for multiple characters to have the same head sculpt in pretty much every other doll genre, even higher-end dolls- I get it's different for this hobby because there's a large emphasis on customization, but there are lots of people that just want to...buy the doll because of how they look as-is or they like the character, rather than buying a doll specifically because they want the base/sculpt for customization. Some people just want a pretty doll, not a blank canvas for customization, and for that reason I actually think it's nice that Danny has so many faceup/skintone variations on the same few sculpts. 

Some people buy a doll because they enjoy that specific sculpt/skintone/faceup/wig/eye combination (and/or the character profile applied to that specific combo) and want to leave them stock, some people want to change some things but enjoy the faceup or skintone, and some people just want the blank doll to use as a base for their own work- those are all valid imo.

Personally I buy a doll based entirely on how the faceup looks, but I don't buy completely blank dolls because I have no desire to do faceups or send the doll to get one, I just want to play with wigs/eyes/clothes lol. 

I think it's weird that Danny often gives different names to skintone variants when they have the exact same faceup, but I don't think it's strange at all to use the same head sculpt for multiple characters with different faceups. There are endless ways to interpret a single sculpt ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Right, but that's not the point I'm making. I'm not bothered about the fact he's using the same sculpt for multitude of heads. It's his marketing I'm taking issue with. It's the fact he IS trying to make it sound like it's a "new doll" it's a new faceup. He's not retiring dolls per say but FACEUPs. Which are paint masks in his case. If people want to buy a certain look, that's also fine. I don't have a problem with him retiring faceups. I don't expect him to keep those looks around forever.

But a little honesty in the sculpts he's using since Volks doesn't seem to have a problem with telling you (This model uses X type head) would be absolutely appreciated and is fine. 

As far as using same sculpts in playline, or fashion dolls and being sold as new dolls. Yes, that marketing is also fine in their cases because the circumstances are different. It's a much larger range/audience. They are trying to push out as much product from the mold/cast to market to very young children. Danny is trying to claim the same about his dolls being sold to the similar demographic of kids, but a the same time he has entries talking about storage and inventory for quality control. Most playline/fashion dolls are less worried about that, and are not worried about being sent to the bargain bin later. 

That and I feel it's contributing to stagnant ideas. He wants to make long paragraphs about innovation/ideas and getting out of the comfort zone but still is afraid of customization and takes a highly walled garden approach. 

I'm saying Danny should let go of that, just say what head sculpt he's using in his product for variant faceups, and he might find a refreshing response from his customer base. 

Side note: I don't know why he says this is for kids, when his disclaimers are more to the adults who will buy the equivalent of a system console for a young kid. 

4 hours ago, Q_T said:

Right, but that's not the point I'm making. I'm not bothered about the fact he's using the same sculpt for multitude of heads. It's his marketing I'm taking issue with. It's the fact he IS trying to make it sound like it's a "new doll" it's a new faceup. He's not retiring dolls per say but FACEUPs. Which are paint masks in his case. If people want to buy a certain look, that's also fine. I don't have a problem with him retiring faceups. I don't expect him to keep those looks around forever.

But a little honesty in the sculpts he's using since Volks doesn't seem to have a problem with telling you (This model uses X type head) would be absolutely appreciated and is fine. 

As far as using same sculpts in playline, or fashion dolls and being sold as new dolls. Yes, that marketing is also fine in their cases because the circumstances are different. It's a much larger range/audience. They are trying to push out as much product from the mold/cast to market to very young children. Danny is trying to claim the same about his dolls being sold to the similar demographic of kids, but a the same time he has entries talking about storage and inventory for quality control. Most playline/fashion dolls are less worried about that, and are not worried about being sent to the bargain bin later. 

That and I feel it's contributing to stagnant ideas. He wants to make long paragraphs about innovation/ideas and getting out of the comfort zone but still is afraid of customization and takes a highly walled garden approach. 

I'm saying Danny should let go of that, just say what head sculpt he's using in his product for variant faceups, and he might find a refreshing response from his customer base. 

Side note: I don't know why he says this is for kids, when his disclaimers are more to the adults who will buy the equivalent of a system console for a young kid. 

I can agree that he should be listing the sculpt in the specs for each character for reference (I personally like when specs such as sculpt and eye/wig type are listed), but putting a new faceup on the same sculpt (and new wig+ eyes)...is a new doll? I wouldn't say the Volks standard model SDM Noa and the limited PSW version of her are the same doll, for example- I'd say they have the same sculpt, which is not the same as saying they are the same doll. 'New doll' does not necessarily mean 'new sculpt'.

I was actually, mostly referring to high-end dolls that do share sculpts between characters, such as Integrity Toys dolls that often do use the same sculpt for multiple characters, or have entire lines based on a single character with one sculpt, or companies like Azone that make dolls using only a handful of heads (the Ex-cute line for example is just two head sculpts with more than 6 different characters), or Pullip or Blythe, etc etc etc. You wouldn't say these dolls are all the same, and you definitely wouldn't say they are not new dolls simply because they have the same head sculpts- you would say the sculpt is not new, which is not the same thing as saying the doll itself is not new.

It seems to me like you're thinking of each doll in terms of parts- some people want a character, and Danny markets to those people quite frequently. Most of the SmD collectors I've met are coming from, say, the 1/6 fashion doll hobby, or the Monster High hobby, or American Girl (lol). They are more likely to connect when a name is added to the mix, instead of only a list of specs and part numbers.

There's definitely some critique needed for the way Danny seems to discourage customization or use of SmD products on other dolls, etc, but I don't think it's weird to make each faceup/hair/eye variation into an individual character and present each variation as a new doll- because that's what they are (at least to some people). New doll, same sculpt. 

 

Edited September 12, 2020 by Serena-Hime

8 hours ago, foo said:

From what I remember, he started going off the rails when Volks got the Nier Automata even though he'd been showing prototypes of 2B using Chitose. TBH I wouldn't be surprised if he approached Square Enix first and SE was like, uh, let's go with Volks. If anyone feels like digging more into that, the time of Volks' Nier announcement was in May 2017.

TBF, Volks totally knocked it out of the park with the Nier dolls. Wish I'd been around to get a 9S/could afford a 9S/a 9S would be dropped from the heavens by a kindly stranger.

(Alternately I showed my partner, who is pretty into Cowboy Bebop, the Smart Doll Spike and... well... lol)

Sorry, veering way off topic XD

7 hours ago, foo said:

That was the summer after right? 🤔 At that point the rails are cleanly off to the side.

The tweet appears to have been on or around August 17th 2018.

 

The Nier announcement was posted on May 3rd 2017.

 

The only other thing I know of that relates to Danny’s dislike of Volks is his throwing away all his Volks dolls. Don’t have a source on that other than posts on this forum, and no idea what date this was.
 

I believe someone once posted a photo of his Volks dolls on a desk with his SmartDolls. 

59 minutes ago, BeyondTime said:

The only other thing I know of that relates to Danny’s dislike of Volks is his throwing away all his Volks dolls. Don’t have a source on that other than posts on this forum, and no idea what date this was.
 

I believe someone once posted a photo of his Volks dolls on a desk with his SmartDolls. 

By May 2014 they seem to be gone

On 9/12/2020 at 9:17 AM, Yumeiro said:

By May 2014 they seem to be gone

Given that his house was converted into a SmartDoll production facility, it seems debatable that removal of Volks dolls from that space really means anything. He says moved into a small apartment with his wife, so maybe they just didn't have space and the dolls were disposed of.

If it were me and cash flow was an issue the way it seems to have been for him at that time, I'd probably have sold them online or at a place like Mandarake instead of tossing them. I don't know where the story about them going in the garbage came from, but if we could find that item, it might give us an expanded time frame for the hostility to Volks. It seems odd that someone would just toss something they could easily sell at or above the original price.

3 hours ago, Serena-Hime said:

I can agree that he should be listing the sculpt in the specs for each character for reference (I personally like when specs such as sculpt and eye/wig type are listed), but putting a new faceup on the same sculpt (and new wig+ eyes)...is a new doll? I wouldn't say the Volks standard model SDM Noa and the limited PSW version of her are the same doll, for example- I'd say they have the same sculpt, which is not the same as saying they are the same doll. 'New doll' does not necessarily mean 'new sculpt'.

I was actually, mostly referring to high-end dolls that do share sculpts between characters, such as Integrity Toys dolls that often do use the same sculpt for multiple characters, or have entire lines based on a single character with one sculpt, or companies like Azone that make dolls using only a handful of heads (the Ex-cute line for example is just two head sculpts with more than 6 different characters), or Pullip or Blythe, etc etc etc. You wouldn't say these dolls are all the same, and you definitely wouldn't say they are not new dolls simply because they have the same head sculpts- you would say the sculpt is not new, which is not the same thing as saying the doll itself is not new.
 
 

 

Hmm. I'll Guess I'll try this again. With less words to reach the overall point that's being missed. 

Those looking for fashion doll and characters I have no problem with. However, they're still a different market. Yes you CAN customize them by wiping off factory paint etc...but I don't take issue with the market.

Danny however, has made it pretty known he sees Volks as a competitor. He's made it known how he was offended and taking potshots directly at Volks. So I'm looking at his products as COMPARISON to said company he's targeting with his replies. Therefore I'm treating it the same way, excluding all the other companies you've mentioned.

 

Quote

It seems to me like you're thinking of each doll in terms of parts- some people want a character, and Danny markets to those people quite frequently. Most of the SmD collectors I've met are coming from, say, the 1/6 fashion doll hobby, or the Monster High hobby, or American Girl (lol). They are more likely to connect when a name is added to the mix, instead of only a list of specs and part numbers.

There's definitely some critique needed for the way Danny seems to discourage customization or use of SmD products on other dolls, etc, but I don't think it's weird to make each faceup/hair/eye variation into an individual character and present each variation as a new doll- because that's what they are (at least to some people). New doll, same sculpt. 

Emphasis mine:

Stating specs is not something that needs to be mutually exclusive? Saying it's one or the other is a misdirection of the point I'm making as well. Volks sells characters too, not complaining. They're quite a bit more honest about it instead of people having to research and post up a chart because for some reason or another Danny won't while taking potshots at a competitor (he views them as) that will. 

 

 

31 minutes ago, Q_T said:

 

Hmm. I'll Guess I'll try this again. With less words to reach the overall point that's being missed. 

Those looking for fashion doll and characters I have no problem with. However, they're still a different market. Yes you CAN customize them by wiping off factory paint etc...but I don't take issue with the market.

Danny however, has made it pretty known he sees Volks as a competitor. He's made it known how he was offended and taking potshots directly at Volks. So I'm looking at his products as COMPARISON to said company he's targeting with his replies. Therefore I'm treating it the same way, excluding all the other companies you've mentioned.

 

Emphasis mine:

Stating specs is not something that needs to be mutually exclusive? Saying it's one or the other is a misdirection of the point I'm making as well. Volks sells characters too, not complaining. They're quite a bit more honest about it instead of people having to research and post up a chart because for some reason or another Danny won't while taking potshots at a competitor (he views them as) that will. 

 

 

I'm not missing your point at all, I'm saying I disagree that 'new doll'  specifically means 'new sculpt' and that I don't find Danny's marketing to be deceptive...because a new doll does not need a new sculpt in order to be a new doll, especially considering that a very sizable portion of SmD consumers (I'd go as far as to say most of them) do not buy dolls entirely based on sculpt, they tend to buy them based on the entire appearance of the doll- the faceup being an important factor, along with the eyes/wig and (potentially) the specific name and characterization applied to that specific doll. Given that fanbase, it doesn't seem odd that he would make multiple dolls and characters with the same sculpt, as more people are buying SmDs to leave mostly-stock and more options/characters means wider appeal. 

I never said that the two need to be mutually exclusive, in fact I said that I would like for the sculpt/eye/wig types to be listed for each doll- I said I don't find it 'silly' or deceptive for Danny to market each sculpt+ faceup variation as a new doll/character, because it is a new doll.

As for why he doesn't list the sculpt for each doll? I don't know, but given what I've seen of Danny's fanbase, it (again) seems like they're primarily buying the dolls for their characters and specific combinations of features, not as bases for customization, so they wouldn't really care if the sculpt is the same in the first place. It could be that he's trying to make his product line seem larger than it is, but I kinda doubt it- he makes no visible effort on his social media to conceal the fact that he reuses the same sculpts for multiple dolls. 

 

Edited September 12, 2020 by Serena-Hime

3 minutes ago, Serena-Hime said:

I'm not missing your point at all, I'm saying I disagree that 'new doll'  specifically means 'new sculpt' and that I don't find Danny's marketing to be deceptive...because a new doll does not need a new sculpt in order to be a new doll, especially considering that a very sizable portion of SmD consumers (I'd go as far as to say most of them) do not buy dolls entirely based on sculpt, they tend to buy them based on the entire appearance of the doll- the faceup being an important factor, along with the eyes/wig and (potentially) the specific name and characterization applied to that specific doll. Given that fanbase, it doesn't seem odd that he would make multiple dolls and characters with the same sculpt, as more people are buying SmDs to leave mostly-stock and more options/characters means wider appeal. 

I never said that the two need to be mutually exclusive, in fact I said that I would like for the sculpt/eye/wig types to be listed for each doll- I said I don't find it 'silly' or deceptive for Danny to market each sculpt+ faceup variation as a new doll/character, because it is a new doll.

As for why he doesn't list the sculpt for each doll? I don't know, but given what I've seen of Danny's fanbase, it (again) seems like they're primarily buying the dolls for their characters and specific combinations of features, not as bases for customization, so they wouldn't really care if the sculpt is the same in the first place. It could be that he's trying to make his product line seem larger than it is, but I kinda doubt it- he makes no visible effort on his social media to conceal the fact that he reuses the same sculpts for multiple dolls. 

 

I appreciate you for getting across the point I was having trouble wording last night~ 

You're exactly on the mark here.

I think a lot of the trouble comes from when people want to buy parts of dolls, and they go to SmD wanting parts. SmD isn't really marketed for that. They're marketed as characters. While it can be a little frustrating when you find a sculpt you want but can't figure out which ones are using different paint but the same sculpt, it's still a matter of the fact that these are all different characters. So this only becomes frustrating for those of us who want to do custom face-ups...which honestly is not the majority of us who like SmD's. 90% of the people I've seen buy them and keep their face-ups at the factory paint. So again, it's all about a difference in audience. SmD is made primarily for those who want a finished product, not those who want to buy parts. 

 

Then people get upset when Danny writes a whole bunch of garbldy-goop in their descriptions, which honestly I either just laugh at or don't bother reading. Honestly when I first saw his weird little fanfictions, I tortured a friend of mine by reading them out loud to her and laughing whenever I stumbled over Danny's "look how smart I am" parts of the posts. XD 

People keep getting upset about "the fat that needs to be cut out" and I'm like... Just laugh at it? Telling Danny to stop posting it isn't going to work. He's stubborn and that'll just make him post MORE. So just laugh at the fact that he feels the need to defend himself and move along. That's how I look at it anyway. 

 

Yeah a lot of the drama is horrid. It really does look like he's done a lot of people dirty. Don't get me wrong, I'm not downplaying that aspect. But if the only reason people don't want to buy his stuff is because they don't like the item descriptions he makes, then just... don't read them? 

14 hours ago, Q_T said:

He's made it known how he was offended

Do you have a source on this? It would answer a question asked.

 

19 hours ago, Q_T said:

But a little honesty in the sculpts he's using since Volks doesn't seem to have a problem with telling you (This model uses X type head) would be absolutely appreciated and is fine.

I think one significant difference with Volks is that Volks dolls are produced with the hobbyist in mind. From Volks perspective it's totally normal to wipe the dolls face and put on a new one, use multiple heads to create one character with several expressions, or create a totally original character.

They offer instruction in doing face-ups, and services like FCS will sell you a full doll with any head you choose, and you have the choice of a custom face-up based on a theme, or receiving it unpainted.

Announcing which head they use isn't just about being honest, it's a concept that lies at the core of the hobby. By telling people what head they used they are in essence saying "look what you can do with this sculpt." You can say the same thing about their clothing pages where the head and body used is called out; it's a way of saying "look what you can do with an SD13 F-63, or Limited DD Mash, using the right outfit."

That said, it's a valid comparison given how Danny seems to be focused on his competition with Volks, and how little effort it would take to say "Charactername is sculpt F6." I think that is especially true given how close some of these sculpts are too each other. It often seems like Kanata has a bazillion small variants, and her entire facial concept has become Danny's new Mirai.

14 minutes ago, ButtonsMcGee said:

I appreciate you for getting across the point I was having trouble wording last night~ 

You're exactly on the mark here.

I think a lot of the trouble comes from when people want to buy parts of dolls, and they go to SmD wanting parts. SmD isn't really marketed for that. They're marketed as characters. While it can be a little frustrating when you find a sculpt you want but can't figure out which ones are using different paint but the same sculpt, it's still a matter of the fact that these are all different characters. So this only becomes frustrating for those of us who want to do custom face-ups...which honestly is not the majority of us who like SmD's. 90% of the people I've seen buy them and keep their face-ups at the factory paint. So again, it's all about a difference in audience. SmD is made primarily for those who want a finished product, not those who want to buy parts. 

 

Then people get upset when Danny writes a whole bunch of garbldy-goop in their descriptions, which honestly I either just laugh at or don't bother reading. Honestly when I first saw his weird little fanfictions, I tortured a friend of mine by reading them out loud to her and laughing whenever I stumbled over Danny's "look how smart I am" parts of the posts. XD 

People keep getting upset about "the fat that needs to be cut out" and I'm like... Just laugh at it? Telling Danny to stop posting it isn't going to work. He's stubborn and that'll just make him post MORE. So just laugh at the fact that he feels the need to defend himself and move along. That's how I look at it anyway. 

 

Yeah a lot of the drama is horrid. It really does look like he's done a lot of people dirty. Don't get me wrong, I'm not downplaying that aspect. But if the only reason people don't want to buy his stuff is because they don't like the item descriptions he makes, then just... don't read them? 

I personally don't care for the descriptions and backgrounds he creates for his dolls and tend to ignore them, but I have noticed that an overwhelming number of SmD collectors are buying them to keep as-is, including their stock names, and a lot of SmD collectors are coming from character-specific doll genres like Monster High rather than coming into SmD from customization-heavy communities like DD or Resin BJDs. Whether or not that is intentional on Danny's part is up for debate, but that is his primary consumer base: people that like to buy pre-made dolls with characters already applied to them. 

I think he can do that and simultaneously list the sculpt in the description, as well as sell blank heads and bodies for people that do want to customize- but I don't think it's deceptive to make new dolls with the same sculpts as older dolls and market them as new dolls. Most of his customers aren't buying their dolls to wipe and repaint, so it doesn't really matter to them if Moment and Journey have the same head lol. 

I really do not like Danny as a person or the way he runs his business, which is why I haven't purchased another SmD since the first Kizuna and Mirai dolls, but that specific example is not that weird imo. 

Edited September 12, 2020 by Serena-Hime