The 60 cms represented teens, while the 45 cms represented toddlers. They were also really expensive [you couldn’t get one for under $400.00, really], all foreign-made and somewhat of a rarity. By contrast, my action figs/fashion dolls were 1:6, cheap [$100.00 is a high-end price for an articulated doll], plentiful both in the States and elsewhere. Since I was used to action figs/fashion dolls, the expansion into the world of BJDs represented a quantum leap away from the familiarity of vinyl.

Scant years later, action figs and BJDs are drawing closer together in ways that I never expected. Soom Uyoo both inaugurated and exemplified the new intertwining of BJDs and action figs/fashion dolls. Explicitly marketed as being the size of 11.5″ fashion dolls, Uyoo was positioned as a high-class resin sibling to Barbie, Jenny and Momoko, only better because you could change her hair and eyes as well as clothes. Furthermore, as a 1:6 and therefore much smaller doll than your usual 1:3 BJD, Uyoo also marked a drastic price drop in the average cost of a BJD, her price much more similar to that of a collector’s action fig/fashion doll than that of a 1:3 BJD. Just like a Barbie, Uyoo was portable, easily dressable and relatively affordable, so she was poised to enter the fashion doll/action figs market [and probably take over Barbie’s closet while she was at it].

Since Uyoo’s introduction, many other 1:6 BJDs have appeared on the market. They fall into two categories: teens [like Uyoo] and young children [like Orientdoll Ji]. I have no desire to populate a BJD universe with a bunch of teens and tinies, but I am always seeking diversity of ages in Love Has Fangs. So the greater availability of 1:6 articulated toddlers, pre-pubescents and young teens [no matter what their construction] excites me greatly. My 1:3 BJD universe has stabilized and completed at 3 inhabitants [Jareth, Frank and Jennifer], but my 1:6 universe has plenty of room for expansion….

…All of which is to say that I have another BJD en route to me. Limwha ToYou, a 27 cm pre-teen girl, will come unpainted and unwigged for about $255.00 [see what I mean about cheap?]. She looks like an abused, haunted, tired, petulant girl of about 12 or 13, which is exactly what she’ll be. All my blood-sucking characters had better watch out for <b>Daisy the vampire killer!!</b>

I’m also going back and forth about getting an Orientdoll So. I really can’t find an articulated plastic toddler. [The closest possibility, Mattel Tommy or Kelly, has no elbow or knee joints. Why not?!] And I really want one for Geordie, Dom’s niece. Plus Orientdoll sells So very cheaply [$109.00 w/o s/h] unpainted, so I may soon have a 3-year-old running around the LHF universe, heh heh heh.